


The little merman

by spockats



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Alternative Universe: mermaids and magic, Angst, Brief Mentions of Imprisonment, Brief mentions of torture, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Little Mermaid Elements, M/M, additional tags will appear as the story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26631778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockats/pseuds/spockats
Summary: Sailors have been disappearing since the dawn of time. A drunken fall, a misstep during a storm, a mysterious shipwreck. Now though, it's different. The Vulcan Naval Academy has issued a mission of doubtful parameters and a crew is preparing to sail.In the abyss of the sea, the mermen are preparing to respond.With a war brewing and old enemies awakening, Jim and Spock will crash together and form an unlikely alliance to save the worlds that they both love and hate-that is, if they can stop bickering.Trusting your enemy isn’t easy, especially when you can’t stop daydreaming about them.Or-the overcomplicated little mermaid AU (inspired bythisTumblr post)
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 33
Kudos: 75





	1. Of running away

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Star Trek, its characters, Disney's The Little Mermaid, or Bohemian Rhapsody. Disclaimer-ing just to be safe.

⎈

Spock had not, of course, had any emotional response when he had been informed that Captain Pike had requested his services as Second Officer again. Especially not happiness. Happiness was illogical, deplorable, foreign to the Vulcan race, and Spock was not subject to its whims. Leaving his study immediately to reach his rooms and pack was only a matter of efficiency.

He had, however, calculated a ninety-seven point eight-three-one percent chance that embarking on the Enterprise would diminish the necessary daily meditation hours his mind required from four to one point three. 

The most copious elements that disturbed his psyche and tired his mind were, in order of importance, his father, his intended, his sister, and his mother. Since none of the listed people would be embarking, Spock felt confident into planning how he would spend the two point seven hours he would gain in the absence of the concerns they evoked in him.

It was not strictly a logical choice. Spock had learned quickly that life on any ship was, per se, an unpredictable chain of event that left no room for meticulous plans. Under the lead of Captain Pike, a man who was for him both a source of admiration and turmoil, this chain of unpredictable events allowed Spock to weave through the orderly sections of memory and reasoning he had cultivated while studying at the Naval Academy. Navigating brought him many challenges, all different from the tangled politics of his father’s palace and the rigid logicality of the Science Academy tests, each event unique and only related to what happened in the minutes around it. The simplicity of working to discover and study, to survive and live, generated hundreds of streams of thoughts that were deeply satisfying to unravel and exploit to reach a remarkable solution.

Spock, as Captain Pike had paraphrased it, thrived on it. 

His enjoyment was a thing to hide. His father had been displeased when Spock had chosen the Vulcan Naval Academy over the Vulcan Science Academy. If Spock was not careful to mask his talents as an officer and the satisfaction he gained at sea, Sarek would put a stop to his trips and would likely send Captain Pike away, out of communication reach. He would, as a result, alienate Spock further into a state of solitude, one he could not fix, despite his attempts.

Spock was respected among the Fleet, yet very much disliked by the rest of his father’s subjects. His hybrid nature was the main reason for their distaste, however much the councillors and politicians sitting at the high table denied it to be so. The second reason might not be Spock’s fault at all, and instead be entirely Sybok’s. His brother had broken several codes of conduct when he had recklessly decided to abandon the teachings of Surak. It was highly likely that all Vulcans were expecting Spock to do the same. 

It was a logical expectation for two main reasons, beside his human heritage. Firstly, Spock had defied his father once already, to join the Naval Academy, at a much younger age than the one Sybok had decided to rebel. Secondly, Spock was a private person. The insults and offending statements his peers had directed at him in his school years had brought him to the decision that being alone would lower his sufferance as compared to being surrounded by distaste. Therefore, Spock only appeared in public for official gatherings, he did not participate in the publication of his personal records, he did not cultivate his public persona, he did not engage in the palace’s social interactions unless it was required of him. It was indeed logical, then, for the Vulcan people to deem him unsuitable as a Prince. They did not know him beyond their prejudice.

This general belief had been clear in his first years at the Naval Academy. He could perfectly recall how many months had passed when no person would sit with him at meals, a common display of social acceptance he had been denied from the start. Spock, of course, had not registered the experience with any emotional attachments. If his required meditation hours had increased significantly in those months, it was likely due to the change in his routine and not for any negative emotional response to his involuntary solitude.

Spock had not acted to oppose his exclusion. He had studied and he had passed his exams, helping those who asked it of him, and he had been promoted quickly. In the five years mission under Captain Pike as his Second Officer, Spock had gained the crew’s respect involuntarily, by working with diligence and carrying out his missions with high survival rates. The number of volunteers to serve under his command on scientific and explorative missions had increased accordingly with his success, and so had the respect of the crew.

Therefore, Spock intended to do nothing about his unpopularity other than carrying out his duties and respecting the high standards his father required of him. It was illogical to try and gain appreciation in any other matter, for his early attempts during childhood had all failed. Spock would be king after his father and he would act to the best of his abilities to make sure no practical complaints about his performance could be forwarded, despite the negativity and distrust that would no doubt rise to oppose him. To wish for anything else was, again, illogical. Vulcans did not feel emotions, therefore Spock felt no sadness.

The doors to his rooms were open. He had locked them himself that morning, informing the cleaning staff he would not be requiring their services for the day. He checked the corridor, then palmed the sword hilt at his waist and entered silently.

“You’re leaving again?” His mother had again entered Spock’s quarters in his absence without his permission. She had the habit of perpetuating similar privacy-disrespecting actions on an average of three point seven-five-two times per week. To confront her about it was fruitless, she had never given Spock any satisfactory response. If he claimed the habit to be annoying, she appealed to the emotional meaning of annoyance and concluded that since Spock claimed not to feel any emotions, it was illogical to ask her to stop for annoyance’s sake. If he declared the habit to be disrespectful to his privacy, she illogically insisted no privacy existed between human mothers and their children.

Spock had proof of the contrary. If the mothers of the human crew knew of the hygienic and sexual conduct of some of their offsprings while on board, they would not welcome them with the same warmth. 

“To confirm an already ascertained fact is redundant and illogical,” Spock replied, taking his hand off his sword and closing the door of his quarters behind him, walking to the entrance to his bedroom. His mother made no move to stop him as he passed her in the middle of the living room, but he heard the layers of silk of her dress sliding against each other as she stood to follow him.

“I’d hoped you could come with me to the opera next week,” his mother said, “T’Pring will be disappointed if you don’t show up.”

“That is unlikely,” Spock replied, finding his uniforms and bags and bringing them from the wardrobe to the bedroom. “The show and the social gathering will happen regardless of my presence and T’Pring is interested in nothing else. Your insistence to conceal her dislike of me with her enjoyment of public life is, yet again, illogical and unnecessary. I do not have any positive or negative emotional response to her distaste, as I have told you seventy three times before.”

“Of course you don’t,” his mother replied, her voice carrying a familiar tone, the one she used when her words did not match the emotion displayed in her eyes. “I know you’re good at repressing your feelings. I just worry, because your mother is illogical like that. I’m happy if you’re happy.”

“Vulcans do not ‘repress’ their feelings and I experience no such thing as-“

“We’ve had this argument many times before. Let’s not part with a fight, mh?”

Spock did not sigh in annoyance, pushing the impending need to externalise his frustration back into the pristine order his mind was built on. His will was enough to control the urge for the time being, though he would require at least three additional minutes of meditation before sleep to reroute the stray thoughts into the clean patterns and lines of a logical mind. His mother would suffer if Spock decided to argue with her before leaving, and causing her pain generated higher mental unsettling than simple frustration. Her sadness would pollute Spock’s mind with guilt, regret, and anger, a concoction that often felt akin to the concept of misery, an emotion Spock had purged himself of many years before. Nevertheless, it felt incredibly similar, and no amount of meditation had obtained him the desirable effect of complete erasure. It must be, as Pike often said, a trick of the mind.

“That is agreeable,” Spock answered, nodding to her to assist him in the packing of his belongings. His mother was considerably less efficient in her folding abilities than he was, though it did not matter. Since leaving his father’s castle for the Naval Academy for the first time, Spock had learned that finding wrinkles or asymmetrical lines in his items of clothing was a matter of no concern. The humans serving with him wore significantly more dishevelled clothes and no supervisor intervened unless they were incorrectly worn. It was therefore logical to allow his mother the comfort of aiding his departure. He had also observed that his daily meditation hours decreased when he was aware of wearing an item of clothing folded by his mother. The reason for this occurrence was unknown.

“I already informed your father of your decision and argued for your sake. He won’t bother you.”

“My father does not ‘bother me’, mother. Being bothered would imply an emotional response. Our disagreements are purely logical.”

“Sure they are,” his mother agreed, though her tone made Spock suspect she was not being sincere but obliging. “I just thought you’d appreciate it.”

“I appreciate all the things you do for me.” 

“Well, that’s a lie,” she replied, a small smile curving her lips. A rather resilient feature considering the displeasure such acts raised in Vulcanshu people. His mother had never shown in front of Spock any proof that the prejudice and judgement against her persona generated in her any negative emotional responses. Spock could not tell if she suffered from it like he had suffered in his youth. “But it’s a nice lie, so I’ll let it pass.”

Spock refrained from informing her that her words were illogical. Using that argument against his mother did not earn him any satisfactory response in eighty nine point four-three-six percent average cases. That was also the case for any insistence that Vulcans did not lie. Her answer was always the same: “Spock, I am married to your father.” It was a frequent cause of additional meditation time for him. 

“How long will you be gone?”

“Captain Pike estimates our voyage might last between three and four weeks.” Spock left his mother to put the clothes inside the bag and walked back to the wardrobe to retrieve his boots.

“That’s short, is it a specific mission?”

“I have not yet been briefed.”

“Whatever it is, promise me you’ll be careful.” That was a request she frequently made of him. It was highly illogical; Spock was always ‘careful’, if the term comprehended the complex attitude of paying attention to one’s surroundings and being consistently ready for any and all adverse occurrences. Not to be careful was senseless and detrimental to one’s conduct and wellness, and Spock did not need repeated reminding.

“I will, mother.” He accepter her caress on his left cheek with a counterclockwise seven point five degree angle of his face. The warm feeling that her touch generated under his skin and inside his chest was familiar. It happened significantly more in her presence than in the presence of others or in solitude. Its frequency had decreased from childhood to adulthood and its intensity had increased by eighteen point seven-five percent in the same time frame. It was an evident error in his thermo-regulative biological chain system, an error no meditation was able to correct. Spock had long ago attributed it to his half human physiology and renounced the search for a rectification. 

⎈

Jim, contrary to very popular belief, was not stupid. He knew that his mother and his brother were expecting him at his debut party. He knew it was important. He knew Bones was going to throw a fit, probably one of the good ones where his claws clicked faster than a dolphin’s sonar and his swimming legs swirled in annoyance until he was completely surrounded by raised sand and then his face and torso started getting as red as his shell. And he knew that that side of the bay of wrecks was a popular hang out for sharks. So what? It wasn’t like he hadn’t escaped sharks before.

Also, Jim would take sharks over the party a thousand times. It was pointless, stagnant, and flashy. He already knew everyone who would attend and he didn’t even like to sing. And he certainly wasn’t head over heels for being chased and pestered by the girls his mother had chosen for his hand. 

Jim actually didn’t mind partying when it was his kind of party, where he was just Jim and not Prince James Tiberius Kirk, where he could let his body dance following the beat of the music without being stuffed into the strict, rehearsed steps of ballroom choreography. He didn’t mind being surrounded by people, his people, those who respected him or didn’t but never once called him out for being himself. Well, they did when he acted like an ass.

Court life had felt stiffening to him since childhood. Every lesson, every dance, every step had a hidden test, one he was expected to pass not because of his royal blood, but because of his father. George Kirk the hero, George Kirk the saviour, George Kirk the great could not have possibly produced an imperfect child. So when Jim got it right, the merit wasn’t his. When Jim got it right, it was _well of course, with a father like that!_

So what else could Jim do but screw up? 

Studying and getting high marks was nice. Paying no attention to his tutors, disrupting the lessons, running away from the school was good. Passing all of his exams anyway and enjoying the way the teachers’ faces became blotted red in annoyance was great. 

Jim learned quickly that the best way to make people lose interest in him was, in fact, screwing up. The funny thing was, they called it ‘asking for attention’.

He also learned quickly that the only way Winona spoke to him more than a few sentences in passing was, again, screwing up.

There was a thin line between his behaviour and illegal stuff, and that line was, to his eternal irritation, his father. Jim talked back, ran away, damaged public property, drank algae liquors, stole algae liquors, stole shells, broke shells, lost fish, lost dolphins, attracted sharks and other stuff, then he would get scolded and sometimes held in detention, but never anything more because _you’re your father’s son and I am doing it for him, just know he’d be very disappointed._

So what else could Jim do but screw up more?

Finding something bad enough to break himself free of his father’s shadow had been a slow process. Jim had self destructive tendencies he had no intention of working on, but he didn’t like putting other people’s lives at risk. He tried stealing more, he tried drinking more, he tried running away more. In one of those trips, Jim accidentally hit jackpot. 

Everybody knew of Vulcans and Humans, everybody knew of their ships. They cast huge shadows on the marine floor and were hard to miss. They meant that every soldier on patrol had to swim up, find a rock, sing and attract one of those strange men under the water. They swam on the surface, powerful and sleek, ignoring their fallen inhabitants, ignoring everything but their path.

They also, as he found out, sank. The first time he found the wreck bay, Jim brought a shiny cold grey stick back with him just out of pure curiosity. He had actually intended to meet with one of his instructors and genuinely ask for their help in understanding what the sparkly thing was. It felt as cold and sharp as their shining weapons, but it didn’t break Jim’s skin.

Winona had gone mad with rage. She had screamed, she had threatened and she had cried. The Vulcans were cruel savages and despicable fish-eaters, all of their creations were dangerous and they were not to be touched, everybody was to stay away from them, Jim knew it but he’d decided to break even that rule, he was doing it on purpose, wasn’t he? Just to spite her, wasn’t he? Well, that was over the line, so over the line he couldn’t see the line anymore, and nothing would save him from a week in the cells.

As the Queen raged and shouted, her people silent and trembling with fear, the only thing Jim had been able to think was _finally_.

That day, Jim discovered three things. First, the perfect rebellion, the thing that made everyone once and for all give up on him and leave him alone. Second, the perfect challenge, a world so scary it was unexplored and brimming with possibilities. Third, the perfect friend, Leonard McCoy.

Bones grumbled, shouted, insulted and glared, he was a doctor not a babysitter goddammit, but in the end he was just as enthusiastic as Jim was to find out what Vulcans and Humans held in their ships. He swam slower than Jim and he tired more easily, but his mind was just as sharp. They collected things, gave them names, discovered their purposes. They learned how to distinguish Vulcan and Human wrecks, they learned how many weapons they usually carried, they learned that there were handholds in their flanks that they could use to climb up.

After the first time Bones tried to show one of their discoveries to Winona and was punished severely, they decided to keep their research secret. When Jim’s trainers decided he was strong enough to have a team, they shared their knowledge with Jim’s soldiers. When Jim’s team had the highest success rate and the lowest losses, Winona looked at him with enraged eyes but was too proud to accuse her son of cheating and lying when he was doing something right for the first time in many years, when he was finally keeping up her beloved husband’s name.

With Chekov and Scotty, the trip to the wreck bay grew more organised and fruitful. In the span of a few months, they had searched from top to bottom a third of the ships and had made two new ones sink. Winona saw the holes they had made in the brown underside and hid them with a spell, taking the victory away from Jim’s hands and telling the people it had been a gift of the storms.

Jim had shrugged and drank algae brandy with Bones and the guys, telling them it didn’t matter, the important thing was the fish they had saved. He told himself he was used to the dirty looks people shot him, the way they swam at a distance when he roamed the corridors of the palace, the way the nobles stopped whispering when he entered a room. He told himself it didn’t matter. 

He had looked for it, he had fought to gain the indifference and the loathing, he had pushed them and pushed them until they had finally decided to leave him alone. He reminded himself the alternative wasn’t any different; Sammy might pretend that he liked being praised and that he liked being patted, but Jim recognised the sourness in his brother’s eyes when fake smiling lips opened to pronounce the word ‘father’. 

He recognised it because after all the fight, after all the struggle, after all the strain and loneliness, George’s ghost still hunted him too. No coral and no shell was sharp enough to cut him away.

And that was why Jim wasn’t at his debut party.

“Sir, maybe we should go back.” Jim sighed as Chekov took position next to him behind a rock. In front of them, beyond a sea of algae three times taller than them, was the relict of the last Vulcan ship that had sunk. 

Jim had wanted to go with Bones, but Bones had said it was in a place with shallow waters too close to the outlet of a land river, which meant it was probably home to Bull Sharks. Then, he had forced Jim to sit on the sand and look at him in the eyes and repeat ten times, “I promise I will not go to that ship alone”. 

Well, Jim wasn’t alone. He was with Pavel, and Sulu had shifted to his bird form to observe from above in case any ship came their way.

Also, Jim was pretty pissed at Bones, because he had taken his mother’s side and had tried to talk him into attending his debut party. Bones insisted that Jim’s voice alone couldn’t keep their numbers up forever, and they needed to make friends with the other teams in case they needed back up. 

Jim had felt called out. His voice was particularly attractive to Humans and Vulcans, and he was particularly good at switching his tone and focusing his magic on one individual or the other, but he hadn’t based his team’s hunting strategies just on that. He had trained them, he had fought with them, he’d made sure they were perfect. He’d never lost a man to an earthling’s spear, a record that was only his, and he’d saved more fish and dolphins than anyone else.

His team didn’t need back up from the people who sneered at them.

“Well, I’m going in, if you want you can stay here and look out for Bull Sharks.” Jim swam inside the algae forest before Pavel could elaborate his words. When he heard the boy’s gasp and the swirl of bubbles and water of a frantic sprint, he smirked.

Chekov appeared next to him, batting away weeds with his hands. “You said they would be sleeping!”

“No,” Jim denied, “I said I _thought_ they were _probably_ sleeping. And they probably are. I mean, it’s night.”

“It is evening!”

“They’re early fish, they should be asleep already. Just be careful not to swim on them.”

“Very funny.” Jim smirked at his navigator and blew him a kiss. Pavel glared. He’d really grown into his confidence in the time he’d spent serving under Jim.

“Cast a hiding spell,” Jim proposed.

“They smell us anyway,” Pavel reminded them.

“Then cast a speed spell and let’s hope we don’t need it.” Jim swam forward, disentangling himself from the sea weed as silently as he could, feeling Chekov falling in behind him. 

Pavel’s spell slithered on Jim’s skin like the tingle of an anemone, fast and sparkling, making his skin sleeker and his muscles more restless. “Did it work?”

“As always, yes. Good job, kid.”

“I am four years younger than you are.”

“So, a kid.” Jim reached the end of the weed forest and looked through the scarce algae on the border. The ship was there, shining and perfect, its brown colour pristine and untouched. “Isn’t it pretty?”

“It is going to be filled with corpses.”

“Nope, it’s Vulcan, see the lines on its back? The swirls on the vertical line mean it’s Vulcan, and Vulcans always manage to escape in those tiny ships, they’re efficient dudes.” Jim studied the waters, looking out for any glitch or movement, any sign that sharks or sentinels were in the area. “I think it’s all clear.”

“Maybe we should ask Hikaru what he-“

“Let’s go.” Jim swam forward with a strong flex of his tail, sand flying up around him. He didn’t need to turn to know that Pavel was following, the kid was crazy smart but not yet quite good at stealth, and his fins made turbulence when he tried to swim faster.

They entered from one of the round holes hiding the long, black tubes that spat balls. Inside the ship the water was darker and colder, but Jim adjusted quickly. Next to him, the yellow glow of Pavel’s eyes shone in a swirl of directions, the boy’s face captured in amazement.

“Told you it’d be worth it,” Jim said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s get a look at the weapons they have. Take the upper level, I’ll take this and the one below.” If any Vulcan was left on the ship, and it was pretty rare, they were usually trapped in the lower sections. Jim didn’t want to traumatise Pavel if he could spare him. Both Vulcans and Humans looked thin and lithe in the air, beautiful and strange, but they got swollen and deformed when they stayed in the water too long, and stank.

The black tubes spitting bombs didn’t seem any different from the ones Jim had seen before. The black, heavy balls they threw up looked the same too. Jim finished his round quickly, not finding anything new that looked like a possible weapon and making quick work of the lower level, where only boxes and caskets were held. Between them, suspended from the walls, were at least thirty bands of the same rough, algae-like material the terrestrial used to cover their bodies. On the floor, Jim found many angle-shaped tubes that he knew they put on their finless feet. Nothing new.

He joined Chekov in his round. As he’d predicted, the boy was lost looking over the many artefacts that every ship held in the room at its back, the one where one wall was made of a cold, sleek, transparent and colourful material. He was twirling a big, yellow sphere in his hands. On it Jim could see that there must have been some kind of drawings and words, but they were peeling off in the water.

“I’ve seen one of those before,” Jim said, “Sulu said they use it as a map.”

“A map?” Pavel asked, “How can they use a map that has no indication of depth?”

Jim shrugged. “Maybe they just write the depth.”

“It makes no sense, no sense,” Pavel muttered, shaking his head. Jim smiled, leaving him to his observations and swimming to one of the yet unopened chests. 

There was nothing inside Jim hadn’t seen before. He rummaged and shoved random objects behind his back, but didn’t find anything new or shiny. 

“Maybe we should go back. If we hurry, maybe we can make it in time for you to sing, Sir.”

“I have no intention of singing,” Jim said, moving to another chest, “and come on, there are at least five more containers to look at, and then there’s that box over there near the bed. Which, by the way, I still think it’s one of Sulu’s pranks. There’s no way anyone can sleep on-“

“Did you hear that? I think it was something big outside, Sir!”

“Pavel, will you relax-“

“SHARK!!” Jim barely had time to turn before the whole room shook with the force of a Bull Shark swimming through the transparent wall, destroying it in thousands of shards, its black eyes fixed on Chekov as it dived in.

Jim reacted on instinct. He grabbed Pavel’s arm and pulled him down and forward, barely avoiding the open jaw and sharp teeth that had been centimetres from Pavel’s chest. “Swim!” Jim shouted, “quick, go!”

Behind them, the shark was destroying walls and furniture trying to turn and attack again, but Jim didn’t turn to check its progress and instead pushed Chekov through the new opening and followed, grabbing his hand and pulling, the speed spell making their tails flicker wildly.

They were halfway to the weed forest when the noise of the shark breaking out of the ship reached them, and Jim chanced a look back as Pavel screamed in fear. The shark was gaining fast, too fast, its tail bigger than theirs and stronger, its skin slicker and its body built for this, for the chase.

They weren’t going to make it. 

Jim looked down, frantic, feeling Chekov’s fear grating against his raw nerves, searching for something, anything that- there! 

Jim pulled Pavel down in a dive, ignoring the his screams of protest and pulling harder, barking commands and hoping the boy was coherent enough to follow them. He could see his objective as a beacon of light, but they were too far, too slow, they might not make it, they might not reach it, they might die there and it would be Jim’s fault, Jim’s stupidity, Jim’s-

“Hold on to me!!” Jim ordered, and Chekov barely grabbed Jim’s chest in a tight hug before Jim flew them inside the Vulcan anchor’s eye, fast as a marlin, and prayed to every marine god that his plan worked. With a rush, a snap of teeth and a loud clang, the Bull Shark fell in Jim’s trap and tried to barrel its way through the eye. As Jim had predicted, the cold black material didn’t wield to his force as the brown walls of the ship had, and the shark got stuck.

Catching his breath, Jim smiled at Chekov’s whoop of relief and joy, looking over at the animal as it wriggled, squirmed and convulsed, raising a cloud of sand as tall as the wrecks.

“Got ya,” Jim said, crossing his arms and sighing through his ragged breathing. “Chekov, thank the gods for your spells.”

“It was amazing! I thought we were going to die, but no! You are a genius, Captain!”

“Anytime, kid.” 

“It was awesome!” Chekov screamed, swimming up and down and laughing. He went up close to the shark’s muzzle and gave it a pat between its eyes. It did not appreciate it one bit, but the way its head was stuck prevented it from retaliating.

“It was pretty awesome,” Jim said, “be careful, though. We barely scraped off alive, no need to make it more mad. Let’s go.”

“You are letting it live?” Pavel asked, his voice slightly alarmed as he swam back to Jim’s side. Jim looked at the shark, its huge, powerful body, its teeth, its black, black eyes, like the pit of a trench.

“Yeah,” he murmured, “it deserves better than being killed while it can’t defend itself. Besides, Bulls are aggressive but they usually don’t hold grudges. It’ll get free and get out of here, probably won’t come back.”

“Can we go tell Hikaru, Sir?”

“Sure,” Jim said, “let’s just cross the forest first. They don’t usually hold grudges but it’s better not to flaunt that all of our fins and scales are still attached to our asses. So, what have we learned today?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> English isn't my first language, so please: if you find mistakes, point them out bc I unfortunately don't have an English mothertongue beta-reader (yet). 
> 
> So, this is the first time ever I publish my writing and I'm kinda nervous. I really hoped you liked it, even if this was more of an introductory chapter. Please let me know in the comments!
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as Spockats if you wanna chat :)


	2. Of saying hello

⎈

Vulcans breathe with a frequency of eight to twelve respirations per minute. The mechanism is similar to Humans’, consisting of an active inhaling and a passive exhaling, pressure and volume opposing the pull of muscles and the elasticity of parenchyma in a dynamic equilibrium. It is, like almost all systems in Vulcan physiology, both a voluntary and involuntary act. It does not carry any conscious connections beside the reflex of fear when it is interrupted, a reflex manageable with rigorous and faultless meditation.

The fresh, clean air of the ocean somehow changed Spock’s awareness of his respiratory system. Which mechanism this change was based on was still unknown to him, though the effect was undeniable. Spock inhaled, and the air descended in his trachea, bronchi and bronchioles, it opened his alveoli and ceded oxygen exactly like the air of ShiKahr. Then, Spock exhaled, his alveoli collapsed, the negative pressure pushed the air back into the bronchioles, bronchi and trachea, then out his his nostrils, exactly like the air of ShiKahr. Everything was the same, and yet everything was different.

Spock inhaled, and the air burned crisp and sharp at the back of his throat, it filled his chest in a fresh, exhilarating embrace of purity, and a feeling of regeneration spread in wintry tingles through his body. Spock exhaled, and he felt the warmth of his flesh leaving him in a misty cloud, he felt the frantic pace of his thoughts decreasing to even-tempered levels, he felt the tension in his muscles surrender against the algid caress of his inspirations, the hours of stress-generated contractions dissolving in a cool slide driven by the negative pressure inside his chest. Spock breathed, and the air appeared to influence his physiology to the deepest levels, it filled his neural receptors and targets and changed the pace of his thoughts. 

He had meditated long about this phenomena, ever since the day he had sailed the ocean for the first time. He had never understood what molecules were involved in this chain of reactions. The physicality was lost on him, as was the difference between the air of the sea and the air of the land. 

He had brought his quandary to Captain Pike, a decision he should have foreseen to be illogical. Captain Pike was Human, and as such he was frequently prone to irrationalities. The man had smiled and placed a hand on Spock’s shoulder, his cooler skin transmitting fleeting sensations through the contact: joy, curiosity, amusement. “Well, Mr. Spock,” he had said, “that is the magic of the ocean. It seems you’re in love with it too.”

The following debate about the illogicality of the sentence had been fruitless. Captain Pike, like he often did, had terminated it insisting they ‘agreed to disagree’. Spock had not managed to change the impression the Captain had developed of him after his revelation. He had insisted that what Spock was experiencing was no physiological anomaly, nor a sign indicating there was any spell or substance permeating the air that made it different from the air present on land. He had insisted that what Spock was experiencing was a positive emotional response to his own presence in the middle of a well known, familiar location. He had not swayed from his belief that Spock was ‘in love’ with the ocean and that he had only been reporting what it felt like to be ‘happy’, no matter the counter arguments Spock had brought forward.

Spock had not let himself be bothered by the Captain’s words. He had achieved the utmost control on his mental abilities years before, surpassing all of his pure blooded Vulcan peers. He had not felt any emotional responses to any event in years. Spock was a scientist, and as such he was analysing an anomalous physiological reaction which consistently appeared when he was exposed to ocean air. Nothing more was to come from his study except the concrete existence of the physical factor that changed his perception of his biology. The additional hours of meditation he had required that night had merely been a consequence of his deeper analysis of the phenomena.

In all of his following voyages, Spock had experienced the same change. There had been no exceptions and minimal differences in perceived intensity. This new voyage too did not vary from the antecedents.

Spock inhaled and exhaled. He was on the aftercastle deck observing the crew members as they proceeded with their duties. He had been given command until Captain Pike and Number One were finished briefing the military crew and could hold a senior officers meeting on the main deck.

Spock inhaled and exhaled. Vulcans and Humans were shouting orders and obeying, each man and woman collaborating flawlessly despite the contempt that existed deep between their races. The Enterprise, Captain Pike often said, was a special ship. Spock tended to agree. Never had he seen such displays of collaboration and acceptance between races and genders, never had he witnessed such a long lasting truce amongst people of conflicting nationalities. The VSA itself had admitted that the Enterprise constituted an exemplary specimen of what the United Federation of Continents should be. 

Spock inhaled and exhaled. The Enterprise felt intimately familiar. Spock could accurately recall its dimensions and details even deprived of his sight. He had familiarised himself with the scent of its wood and lacquer so distinctly that he was able to distinguish it from that of any other ship. He had learned the different noises it made when the sea was motionless, calm, uneven, ruffled, turbulent, or tempestuous, and could minutely distinguish them. He knew every surface and imprecision, his feet sure and steady as they walked on familiar paths, remembering every declivity and inclination, every splinter and knot. 

Spock inhaled and exhaled. Captain Pike often said that the Enterprise was his favoured place of residence, and he was especially vociferous about it after long absences. He referred to his rejoining of the crew and resumption of his duties as ‘being back home’ or ‘being home’. Spock had learned that Humans all shared and agreed upon an emotional bivalence on the definition of the synonym words ‘home’ and ‘house’. Though they often appeared to use them as equals when referring to their habitation’s location or description, they actually attributed different sensitivity levels to each word. ‘House’ was an objective term with little sentimental connotation. ‘Home’ appeared instead to include in its definition the comfort of one’s privacy and solace. ‘Home’ was used to denote affection and connection, relief of presently being in the vicinity, or nostalgia of presently being away, from a place that was considered deeply familiar and safe.

If Spock was to paraphrase his current intellectual satisfaction of being surrounded by known, restful, and secure elements after seven months of being on land, he would indeed say he was back home. However, since Spock followed the Vulcan way he was not prone to human sentimentality. Therefore, his satisfaction was purely rational and apathetic. Accordingly, he inhaled and exhaled and only scientifically registered the placid and palliative qualities of ocean air.

“Spock, is everything where you left it?” Number One climbed the final step of the stairs that linked the aftercastle to the quarter deck. 

“Everything appears normal.” He accepted her nod of greeting with one of his own. Number One had never respected the Human social standard of vocal greeting previous to the start of a conversation, like many other standards of polite conversation. It was both a source of irritation and appreciation. He found her direct approach to be positively practical when she used it to convey information faster, but troublesome when she used it to express criticism.

“Chris is waiting in the Navigation room. Give the call for the other officers to join you.” She motioned for Spock’s position in front of the wheel.

“Yes, Commander.”

After Captain Pike finished the briefing, Spock resumed his duties and joined the Navigator to write down the details of their mission. 

The Enterprise had been commissioned to patrol a vast area of sea where many ships had claimed the unexplainable loss of crew-members and weapons. Three recent shipwrecks by sinking had been reported in the same area, though Navigators and survivors insisted there had been no storms and that they could not recall any details of the accidents. Captain Pike had decided to follow the paths taken by the ships which had safely returned first, and then follow the hypothesised ones of those which had sunk. The entire voyage was seven thousand and one hundred nautical miles long approximatively. Spock had been tasked to assist the ship’s Navigators into reconstructing a map of each ship’s voyages and pathways.

It was no easy feat. The number of ships to consider was not absolute nor given. Many captains had declared missing men, though some of them had not felt confident into describing their disappearance as mysterious and unexplained but rather caused by drunken falls which went unnoticed. Nevertheless, Captain Pike had not wanted to exclude them from the calculations. Spock found the decision to be logical. Some of the missing men might have fallen off the boat unnoticed, though the numbers of reported disappearances were too high to leave out any detail considering the little information they could rely on.

Also, many of the sunken ships had been merchant vessels. The trading companies had asked for the Navy’s help and had provided general information for the Enterprise’s investigations, though they had not revealed their precise routes in fear of having them revealed to their competition. Captain Pike had reported that he had long questioned the lawyers and directors of the companies to no avail. Not even the possibility of leaving the mystery unsolved and risking the loss of more ships had convinced them to provide precise information. 

“It’s our fault, kind of,” Captain Pike had said, “we’re such a great ship, we’ve done the impossible so many times that now it’s the only thing they expect out of us. Our reputation precedes us and this time not in our favour.”

Spock considered the Captain’s opinion valid. Like him, he did not believe the information they had been given to be enough. By his calculations, probability of successfully guessing the precise routes was five point seven-two-four percent. Consequently, the chances of discovering the issue and solving it dropped at three point nine-seven-five percent.

Captain Pike had considered the odds acceptable. “We have our orders,” he’d said, “to go and patrol to the best of our abilities despite the shitty brief they’ve given us. We’ll keep a tight record and write down everything - Spock, I’m trusting you with this, I need the record of your dreams, the most precise thing ever written - and then we’ll go home. That’s our goal, folks. We’re sailing blind in a sea that eats up people and ships. Finishing the mission and getting everyone home is priority one.”

The Captain’s logic was sound. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few, though if the few are the only ones capable of solving an issue and therefore save the many, their safety was to be put before any mission success. 

The crew seemed troubled by the fact that their Captain had admitted that the odds were not in their favour, yet the mission would continue. Surprisingly, even the Vulcan members were displaying signs of uneasiness. Spock attributed this negative emotional response to the fact that the Captain himself and Number One were worried.

“I won’t lie to them and say everything’s all right,” Captain Pike answered when Spock questioned him on the soundness of revealing his worry. “They’re a good crew and they’re tough. They can take it.”

Indeed they could. Despite the instinctual unwillingness of entering a dangerous situation without the complete knowledge of the possible perils, the crew kept performing admirably. After five days of sailing, on the eve of entering the first area Spock and the Navigators had painted red to convey possible danger, they decided to throw a party. Spock was familiar with the expression - it did not involve hurling or flinging anything - and with what would happen at said event. The party, like the many he had experienced before, had a theme or meaning. This time, it was Spock’s oncoming birthday, an extremely illogical human tradition of celebrating the day they were born, and one Spock did not observe. Still, he would attend the party like he had attended the ones on all previous missions.

Usually, he dined with the crew on the main deck instead of dining alone, he then stayed at his place at the table and observed the men and women as they danced and sang. He would converse and observe for two hours minimum. After that, his participation became consistent enough to be considered polite and involved, and he could excuse himself and retire to his quarters.

Despite having the same verbal designation of a party held at ShiKahr, a party on the Enterprise was very different. On the Enterprise, a party meant that the crew could dance freely, enjoy themselves and relax while simultaneously get intoxicated. There were no expectations other than participation. Even the Captain joined in on the alcohol consumption, dancing, and jesting. It was not altogether a bothersome affair, even if it was certainly not one of Spock’s preferred use of his personal time. Nevertheless, it was an extremely efficient way of boosting crew morale and Spock knew his participation, like the one of all senior officers, increased the success rate of the emotional uplift.

Therefore, Spock was on the main deck at the precise hour the party was supposed to start at, helped Commander Nhan with late preparations, and stayed seated when dinner was finished and the Yeomen started clearing the plates and cutlery. The music volume increased, and many people stood to retrieve more alcohol and speak with different crew members. 

Spock kept his seat and observed, offering nods and polite conversation when required.

“Spock,” Captain Pike called, walking towards Spock’s seat at the table, “can I join you?”

Spock inclined his head to the seat Lieutenant Belroy had just vacated to join her department colleagues in a dance accompanied by guitar music.

“Having fun?” 

Spock observed the Captain. He was holding a glass of liquor that was half empty, though his breath did not smell of alcohol and his eyes were not lucid. He was only pretending to drink, probably not to cause worry between the crew. “I am not averse to being here.”

“Good,” the Captain murmured, “good.” He kept staring at his glass, his face pensive. Spock recognised the expression as the one Captain Pike showed when something was confusing, harmful or dangerous and he believed he could do nothing to solve it.

“Captain, are you not enjoying the festivities? Is something troubling you?”

Captain Pike smiled. “Ever observant, Spock. I hope I’m not too bad at faking it, or I’ll ruin everyone’s evening.”

“You are adequate for Human levels of attention to details. The remaining Vulcans are intoxicated enough they will not notice you are forgoing your drink.”

“Great.” The Captain raised his eyes from his glass and looked at Spock with a frown on his forehead. Spock waited. “Tell me something. Did you hear the crew murmur anything particularly crazy or illogical these past five days?”

Spock pondered the question, trying to gauge what the Captain was asking him. The crew displayed illogical behaviours and habits every day, frequently boasting them out loud. None had stood out to Spock’s attention as irregular or new. “I have not.”

“Nothing about the sea and what lives in it?”

“Only standard fishing details by the individuals who manage provisions.”

The Captain sighed, looking at Spock with a gaze that conveyed troubling thoughts. “What do you know about merpeople?”

Spock knew a significant amount of information from Human stories his mother had read to him in his childhood. They had been illogical, though acceptably well written. “They are a mythological humanoid race that supposedly live under the sea. They are, of course, only fictional and probably inspired by past sightings of unknown marine fauna. Their descriptions indicate that there might have been different marine animals at the time those stories were written, since no known being currently inhabiting the oceans has similar marine morphological characteristics.” Captain Pike did not appear satisfied by Spock’s answer, despite having been informed of all relevant details on the matter. “Sir?”

“What would you say if I told you that the Navy sent us to investigate the possibility of their existence?”

“That it would be an illogical and disproportionate waste of resources, since they do not exist outside of books and stories.”

“Some of the crew believe in them. Did you know that?”

“I had hypothesised there would be a percentage of individuals engaged in the Human beliefs of superstition on every ship’s crew.”

“That’s why they’re nervous. Some of them swear they’ve seen one. Others swear that they have friends that have been taken and escaped. Some even drew them and showed them around. They think we’re going into their territory and that they’ll sink our ship.”

“Perhaps it would be wise to corroborate their statements with their daily alcohol or chocolate consumption.”

“And what if I told you I had a valid reason to believe in their existence?”

Spock paused to best ponder his answer. He firmly believed merpeople to be the object of fantasy stories and drunken visions. He did not blame the sailors who claimed they had witnessed the proof of their existence; life at sea was hard, especially for the low ranking crew, alcohol was often too easily accessible and the protective value of mentally elaborating trauma through fantasy-inspired visions was scientifically proven to occur among weaker minds. He would never have placed Captain Pike among them. “Then I would ask you why a man of reason such as yourself would believe in this myth, Sir. And I would ask that you undergo a psych evaluation. With all due respect to your authority, of course.”

“Let’s just say I knew someone.”

“Your personal acquaintance of a particular individual lead you to believe the stories are true?” Spock did not let his surprise show in his voice, though he was negatively surprised by the Captain’s superficial analysis on the matter. 

“No. I knew someone who purposely went into the sea and never came back.”

“Your personal acquaintance of a person who drowned made you believe in mythological creatures? If so, the illogicality and misfeasance of this mission is extreme, and we would do well to turn back and-“

“No, no, stop. I didn’t hijack the ship on a personal whim! Spock,” the Captain said with an urgent voice, “I know how crazy it sounds, all right? The crazier thing is, a lot of sailors swear they exist, I have personal reasons to think it’s possible, and the Vulcan Naval Academy believe in them enough that they gave us this mission, and asked me to lead a secret investigation to verify these claims. The Vulcan Naval Academy, Spock.”

Many things the Captain had said were worthy of attention and discussion. Firstly, the level of secrecy. If Captain Pike had not briefed Spock on the first day about this, he must be breaking regulations by involving him now. Secondly, the personal reasons, which Spock still could not understand the logic of, especially at the Captain’s continued insistence that they were valid without offering proof. Thirdly, the commission from the VNA. It sounded extremely illogical, enough that it appeared an impossible occurrence. So impossible, that the fact that it had happened must mean it was not illogical at all, but an alternative explanation was present. “That is worrisome. It means that an impostor could have overtaken the Admiralty.”

“Conspiracy theories, Spock? Really?”

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

“Merpeople are the impossible.”

“Captain, are you suggesting that it would indeed be possible for a sentient specie to have developed under the sea while also remaining undetected by anyone on land?”

“Maybe they have magic more advanced than us.”

“Then why have they not made contact?”

“Maybe they are making contact,” Captain Pike said, “maybe this is their way of saying ‘hello, we don’t want you here’.”

⎈

Bones and Jim had argued. 

They argued often. Hells, half of the doctor’s words were curses and insults, so technically they argued all the time. They also argued seriously once or twice a week, with big, loud fights where neither could see the other’s side and both refused to bulge. They also usually made up pretty fast. A mission would come up, or Jim would get blamed unfairly, or Bones had a problem at the medical tower, and they found each other to grouch and complain, the rawness of the fight erased by the familiarity of their friendship.

This time, Bones and Jim didn’t have the chance to make up. Because Bones had ratted him out. 

Jim had underestimated how serious the doctor had been when he’d asked Jim to play along with his debut party so they could get better missions and better back up by playing nice with the other teams. 

And Bones had underestimated how much Jim had wanted to see the new sunken ship and not play nice with the people that treated him like a broken doll. 

The argument had been ugly. Probably the ugliest they’d ever had. Bones had been mad that Jim had put Chekov’s life at risk despite being told how dangerous the trip was, so mad that Jim had really thought he would get punched in the face. He hadn’t, of course. Bones was above that. Jim not so much. If the guards hadn’t come to take him away, Jim would have punched him the moment he’d understood it had been Bones who had told his mother in front of all the court that Jim had gone to see a ship wreck.

Bones and Jim hadn’t had a chance to make up because Winona had closed Jim in a frozen cell. For two weeks. He hadn’t eaten anything, hadn’t seen anyone, for two weeks. He’d lain in the frigid water too thick to move, too thick to scream, alone with his thoughts and the pain of his body falling asleep in the dark.

He’d done nothing but think, imagine, hope, anything that wasn’t the awareness of the present, of the pain, of the fear that they’d leave him there forever. He’d gone through all of his childhood stories and books, all of his lessons, all of his possessions. He’d repeated strategies for his team, strategies for the others, strategies for the searches and patrols. He’d made up new stories, new plays, new books. He’d counted to a million and backwards using only the multiples of seven. He’d numbered all the prime numbers from one to a hundred thousand. He’d rethought all the mistakes of his life.

Jim had understood the utter screwup he’d been. He’d brought seventeen years old Pavel, a strategist and not a soldier, a kid, to a ship wreck potentially filled with corpses, in Bull Shark infested waters, with no back up or defensive weapons. 

Like Bones had said, if the anchor hadn’t been there, they would have died. They would have died, and it would all have been his fault for always pushing too much.

“I’m sorry,” Jim immediately tried to say when Bones’s face appeared beyond the barrier, the moment the ice started to melt. He couldn’t, the water was dense and algid in his mouth and his tongue was numb. He couldn’t feel any part of himself, not his fingers, not his fins, not his face.  
Bones understood anyway. “I’m sorry too, kid.” He looked like shit. Jim must not be looking any better.

“It-t was-s m-my f-fault-t,“ Jim tried, his swollen tongue feeling like a shell of ice that didn’t belong in his mouth, his whole body pulsing with pain as heat started coming back to his blood. It lasted three long, agonising seconds where Jim felt like he was being submerged in active lava. Then, a whisper, a word, Bones’s magic caressing Jim’s skin in a familiar pattern, and the pain was gone.

“Leave it, kid. I should have known she would have put you here. We’re equally shit friends.”

They were not. Jim had nearly got Pavel killed. Bones had only done his job as his mother’s councillor, and even if it had been agony, Jim had never been at risk of death. But neither Jim nor Bones had ever been good at this part. Jim wanted desperately to make a joke and hear Bones grunt in annoyance. He wanted to swim to him and hug him. He wanted to swim to Pavel and make sure the kid would never, ever do something so stupid again, make sure he understood that Jim was an idiot. He wanted to swim up, as fast as he could, until he reached the sun.

The cell opened. Bones reached him before Jim could move and hugged him hard. It was so tight Jim could barely breathe, so tight it hurt, and Bones’s heat was scorching against his frozen skin. Jim breathed and hugged back.

  
“Since the last ship sunk, nothing has swum over us.” They were lying on the sand just outside Sulu’s favourite island. The water was barely deep enough to hold them straight, but it was crystal clear and warm, and the sun was caressing Jim’s skin, melting away the frigid coldness the prison had condensed in his bones.

“What?” Jim sat up slowly and turned to look at his team. Scotty was asleep and Pavel was halfway there. By their looks, they hadn’t lived Jim’s imprisonment any better than Bones had. They all looked half starved, they all had bags under their eyes and they all looked at Jim like he was a step from breaking up like a coral.

“No ships whatsoever have passed over us or over the territory as far as the other teams say,” Sulu said, “I went on more than one air patrol and there was nothing for miles and miles.”

“That’s strange.”Jim lay back down. “What did my mom say?”

“That we’ve scared them away, that we need to hit them hard next time they appear so they never come back. She wants to attack full force, or that’s what we heard. They’re getting ready to fight openly, no more hiding, to send them away for good.” For a moment, Jim felt like he was back in the frozen cell. His mother, who had devoted her entire life to the secrecy of their people, who had turned those who had tried to talk to terrestrials into fish and banned them, who had hidden the shipwrecks in fear that someone might decide to attack a ship directly and be seen, that woman had decided to go on an open war, completely unprepared.

She had never even looked in Jim’s direction the first times he’d tried explaining her that ships had a structure and that he had strategies to sink them. She’d never tolerated hearing a single word from him about his observations on their weapons. She’d built their whole military structure to create teams that freed fish and captured terrestrials in the utmost secrecy. She’d lived her life in fear of discovery, and suddenly decided to go openly to the surface? For a war? Over a temporary scarcity of ships?

“She thinks we scared them by taking random men when one team gets lucky? Or by cutting their ropes and freeing some fish?” Jim shook his head. “They’re not that weak. If they noticed us, they’ll be back to search, patrol, or attack. If the first thing we do is strike, they won’t hesitate to fight us and they’ll win.”

“So what should we do?” Bones asked.

“Anticipate her and stop anyone from giving notice if a ship swims over us.” Jim sighed, ready for what was sure to be a heated confrontation. “Then, we need contact. Sending Sulu out in the air isn’t enough anymore. We need to get on their ships, to go on land, to find out what they want and talk. Maybe if we tell them to stop fishing or throwing spears at our whales, they’ll stop and we can all live in peace. If they agree not to swim here, my mother won’t have anything to attack.”

“Why would they? They’re evil, kid. They have so many weapons on those things, they could tear down our castles, it’s clear they’re a warrior race.”

“There’s more than one terrestrial race, and those weapons are for each other,” Jim argued, “Sulu and I saw it once. We just need to understand what’s going on outside without giving away our existence and then decide what to do, before everything escalates. Maybe they just want to say hello. Maybe one faction is stronger and would be willing to have us as allies, stopping the others from coming here.”

“And how do we ‘understand what’s going on outside’?” Bones asked.

“We get legs and we go up.” This wasn’t the first time Jim had thought about this. Sure, it had never entailed the chance of getting his people out of a potential war, but the thought had been there. There were spells, magicians, hells, even his mother’s trident, that could do it. That could give legs to a fish. He’d dreamed about it, about the possibility, about going up and pretending to be someone else, someone normal, and ask questions, discover, travel, walk. Run. 

It didn’t surprise him that yet another one of his dreams would be wrecked by his mother. Jim would get legs, but not the adventure. He’d get responsibility, and danger, and the weight of having to succeed at any cost to avoid a war they would lose. And he would have to do it in secrecy, through whatever black market thing they could find, and leave the land world to come back there, to the place where he was just a bad copy of another man, the place where he wouldn’t be listened, to try and settle whatever mad plan his mother was making up before she sentenced them all to death.

Bones hadn’t been enthusiastic about Jim’s idea, but he had admitted it was the only one making sense. It had taken days of arguing, but he finally grunted in that grouchy way that meant yes, fine, do whatever and see if I care. 

Jim knew he cared and he knew he was right. 

They had spent years studying Vulcans and Humans, but it was not enough to understand them if they couldn’t communicate. They were smarter and more advanced, they made both beautiful and terrifying things, and they would turn their weapons to his people if Winona fired on them, without holding back. If his mother was too blinded by fear to see it, if she couldn’t see past her hate and realise the danger she was diving into, they had to go the other way.

Jim had promised they’d do it smartly and he had kept his word. They’d spent five days around Sulu’s island, basking in the sun and thinking of any spell they could use to turn themselves into earthlings even for one single hour. Nothing had come up yet, only Pavel finding a spell that would tell them if any ship swam above Winona’s lands. Which, yes, tremendously useful, but not what they needed right now.

“Bones, you know there’s only one thing left to do.” They were going back to the castle. Bones had finished his five days leave and Jim had to sit down and at least try and talk with his mother. After five days in the warm waters of Sulu’s island, the coldness of the ocean felt like a slap in the face. Bones had examined him thoroughly and declared him back to pristine health and normal temperature the day before. Jim still felt the cold deep in his blood and flesh like a lurking predator. He didn’t think it would ever go away. 

“No.”

Jim took Bones’s arm in his hand and pulled him back from the group, waiting for them to swim on until they were out of earshot. Bones glared. Jim glared right back.“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.“

“Yes, I do. You want to look for the lunatic that killed your dad.”

Jim clenched his teeth against the annoyance, the pain, the rage of having yet another aspect of his life influenced by George Kirk. He didn’t take the bait, though. Jim was right and anger would only drive Bones away.“He was a land-walker before the battle and he turned himself into a swimmer to survive.”

“He was a _Vulcan_ and he died, Jim.”

“No, he didn’t,” Jim hissed, “why else would my mother be so afraid of the place where he sank? Why did no scouts or sentinels ever come back from it?”

“PTSD and sharks.”

“There aren’t that many sharks, Bones.” 

“Well, there ain’t-“

“Captain!” Chekov was swimming back to them and flailing his arms, his voice filled with excitement. “There is a ship!”

“One ship?”

“Yes, Sir! It is of medium dimension and narrow, very very fast. It will reach us in ten minutes.”  
Jim turned to Bones glowing with the satisfaction of having just been proved right. One single ship, very narrow, after a period of silence. By his annoyed scowl, Bones knew it too. “A patrol ship,” Jim said.

“Or a rich merchant vessel,” Bones grouched, though his grim expression proved he was only arguing for the sake of arguing and having the last word.

“A rich merchant vessel always carries backup. Fast, slim and alone? It’s a patrol ship. They know. They’re coming to study us.” Jim turned away from Bones and Pavel and stared into the dark depth of the ocean. It seemed to go on for miles and miles, always blue, always alive. 

It didn’t, though. After swimming and swimming, you eventually reached a place where no more blue was in front of you, but the dirty black and brown of rocks and sand. Land. Inhabited by earthlings, by Vulcans and Humans, inventors and scientists, soldiers and hunters. How easy would everything be, if no land existed. The seas would lie calm and untouched, bristling with life, their equilibrium balanced, their citizens safe. Jim’s people would be able to swim endlessly, to go up to the surface and enjoy the warm rays of the sun on their skin without fear of being seen. Jim would have never needed to train to be a soldier, a Captain. He would have never had to pull strange men from their floating homes and see them trapped or transformed. 

His father would have never died. His mother wouldn’t have turned into the paranoid, scared, alcoholic mess she was. Would he have had a normal life? A happy life? What purpose would there be, if the frantic need to survive against the enemy were taken from them? What purpose would Jim’s life have, without the discoveries and inquiries he’d made?

The land-walkers were each sea kid’s goodnight story. They were the monsters that lurked above the water, the shadows that covered the sun. They captured fish and ate it without care for schools and equilibriums. They killed whales, they killed dolphins, they killed octopuses, they killed people.

They also invented things. Things so smart and complex that Jim spent days and days studying them to understand them. Things so beautiful they left him speechless. 

His mother said that they were savages. She said there was no way of talking to them, no middle ground. No diplomacy was possible because they were too evil. Jim had seen evil in his life. He had seen it in his mother, in her soldiers, in her subjects. He had seen it in himself. If the land walkers, with their beautiful ships and beautiful objects, with their stubborn attitudes and curious minds, were not salvageable, was Jim? Was anyone?

How could a person be good if they had no darkness to overcome, to fight, to leave behind? Being good without the struggle of choosing it against all odds, despite all difficulties, was just being naive. If the land walkers were truly that malefic, why would they paint, why would they sculpt?

And if they were completely beyond redemption, how were Jim’s people any better, especially if they attacked first?

“Chekov, call the others. We need to act fast.”

“Jim? What kind of crazy ass idea is swimming in that algae head of yours?”

“I’m getting on that ship.” Jim ignored Bones’s snort of laugher and swam towards the others, ideas swirling in his head like the ink of a squid, tangible yet untouchable, physical yet ungraspable, slowly forming a plan.

“Wait, wait, wait. Hold your marlins. You’re fucking serious?!”

“What? What’s happening?” Scotty asked, his breath laboured as he ran after Sulu and Pavel.

“Jim wants to get on that damned patrol ship!” Bones screamed.

“Lad, are you completely out of your shell?” Scotty asked.

“I don’t mean on it as in jumping right in the middle of it. I mean, I’m getting on the side of it to listen in on what they’re saying.”

“That’s a great idea, Jim. Best you’ve ever had. Get on a damned patrol ship sent here to find us, what could go wrong?!”

“I know it’s not great, all right?” Jim snapped. “But we need to know what they want before my mother drags us into a war we can’t win. If we start shooting, they’ll shoot back one hundred percent. Maybe their intentions are good. Maybe they’re not here for us at all and we just need to keep them from passing over the palace. Whatever it is, we need to stop studying them and start to get to know them. I’ll go up and listen. That’s all.”

Silence followed his words. Jim took a deep breath and tried to think, ignoring the tension. He was used to being alone. He could do it without their help. He didn’t need their support, he’d been alone most of his life and he’d always managed, hadn’t he? It always ended up like that when things got down, him alone. And it was fine. He was fine. He was used to it. It just hurt now because he was used to having them, but he’d get over it. He was just feeling colder because he’d just spent days in the ice and he was swimming back inside cold waters. No other reason. He was fine. He didn’t need them, he didn’t-

“I’ll give you a silencing spell, Sir,” Scotty said, “the best I can do. They won’t hear you even if you scream like a penguin.”

Jim found it suddenly hard to swallow. “Thanks, Scotty.”

“I will gather dolphins we will use to hide under and follow the ship waiting for your return, Sir,” Chekov said. “This way, they will not suspect any splashes and we will be near.”

“That’s- that’s a great idea, Pavel.”

“I’ll turn into a seagull and make noise in case we need to distract them.”

“Perfect, Sulu.”

“I’ll weave up a damn immunity booster so you don’t catch anything from those weird scaleless idiots while you’re up there like a clam.”

Jim found himself smiling, against all odds, warmth blossoming in his chest. “Thank you, Bones.”

Jim had the best team of the whole ocean.

If Jim had had any doubts that the ship was indeed a patrol, they went to the currents the moment he saw how many of those circle shaped holes with the black tubes they had. It was definitely military. It was also the most beautiful he’d seen so far. 

And the loudest.

“What is this damn noise?” Bones asked, looking at the approaching shadow of the ship’s hull. 

Jim turned from his friend to the boat, curious. It was quite loud, and rhythmic. Almost like…

“It’s their music,” Sulu said. Jim’s gasp didn’t make any noise, hidden by Scotty’s spell, but his gape must reflect the others’. “It’s kinda weird. But it’s more complex than ours, and more regulated. If you listen carefully you’ll see they’re repetitive patterns and they’re not improvising.”

“It’s awfully loud,” Bones grouched.

“That too,” Sulu agreed. 

Jim shrugged and smiled as he extended his wrist to Bones and let his friend puncture him with his shell. The warm feeling of the potion entering his bloodstream radiated all through his arm and disappeared around his chest.

“Of course you like it,” Bones muttered, “it’s stupid and loud, just like you.”

Jim had half a minute left at best. Sulu waved them goodbye and swam up, his magic swirling around him until he reached the surface and emerged as a white seagull, spreading its wings and flying up. When turned, Sulu fell out of the sea’s magic and lost his protective spells. He was a target just like any other bird, and he didn’t have the translation spell to help him understand land languages. Nothing had ever happened to him whenever Jim sent him to study a ship, but the possibility of the terrestrials finding Jim and understanding that the weirdly big and white seagull could be linked to him was suddenly a very real possibility. They were crazy smart, who knew whether they hadn’t already noticed how Sulu was different from the other birds?

“He will be fine, Sir,” Chekov promised, “he has done this many times.”

Jim nodded and forced himself to smile. He hoped it came out better than it felt.

The ship was nearly in range now. Jim had to act fast and try and grasp the side on the first try. If he didn’t, anyone walking on the edge might see him swimming after the ship. Also, Jim had to jump out a few meters and land on the wall, and the less times he had to try, the less likely it was that someone noticed a big ass fish crashing against their ship over and over again. The spells covered the ocean, but probably not the land material the wall was made of.

“Go, Captain, go!”

Jim swam up as fast as he could, his tail swirling in the powerful, precise motions of a chase. The shadow of the ship grew bigger and bigger as they swam towards each other, bubbles and waves following them both. The narrow part of the hull blinked bast him and Jim accelerated, giving three good swings of his tail, and broke free of the water’s edge.

The dry, cold embrace of the air stuck to Jim’s skin immediately, chasing off the water that trickled down in a silent fall and rejoined the ocean. The wall of the ship felt harder than it did underwater, and Jim made much more noise than he’d hoped for when his face slammed against it full force. He was barely aware enough to swing out and try to grasp something with his hands as he saw bubbles from the pain of the impact. He would probably bruise.

When he finally stopped seeing black spots, Jim found himself plastered to the wall of the ship, wind and water slapping against him in frigid waves. His tail fins were still in the water and they were being pulled by the current. Looking up and searching, Jim decided to try and pull himself up. Inch by inch, he found ledgers and holes and protrusions and gained enough height that he was completely out.

He had only a few minutes before he had to dive back to catch his breath.

Above him, the music sounded even louder and more complex. He could distinguish different sounds, maybe different instruments, and more than one land walker’s voice doing what they probably thought was singing. Now that was awful. 

He could also hear voices, but not clearly enough. The music confused them in a chaotic wave of sounds, just enough that Jim could catch syllables but not words. He had to go higher.  
He climbed up, straining against the pull of gravity, suddenly aware of how much the water truly held him up when he was under. The air lent nothing. Jim’s arms were the only thing keeping him up,

When he reached the edge of the deck on a low, wide opening, he was more tired than he’d been after escaping the Bull Shark. It didn’t matter, though. He was up and he could hear. Even better, he could see.

The walkers were doing something that looked awfully like a party. They were moving in repetitive swings as if they were dancing, they were holding small cylinders and taking swings and laughing as if they were drinking, they were smiling and singing and shouting to the air.

Yes. This was a party. 

Jim could probably let go and fall back in the water. He didn’t think that any of them would stop dancing or laughing to ask their friends to get a refresh on any details of their mission.

He didn’t, though. Looking at them, despite how awful their singing sounded, despite the weight in his chest, was thrilling. They were having a party. Those people, those who had invented all of the things in front of him, those who had build this ship from the hard, unforgiving material of their lands, those were partying just like Jim did, laughing and dancing, drinking and having fun.

And they looked so _happy_.

They were different from each other too. They all had legs, yes, but some had pointy ears, others had them rounds, others had none at all but only had small, dark holes on the sides of their heads. They were all covered with those algae-like thingies that floated like jellyfish if put in the water, all in blue, yellow or red. They were-

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Jim’s head snapped to the side. That voice. _That voice_. It was clear as tropical water, warm as sun kissed sand. It was deep like the song of a killer whale and clean like the pearl of an oyster. It was harmonious, strong, swift, and smooth. It was… perfect.

A tall, blue-dressed walker was seated at the table. His left side was illuminated by fire and exposed to Jim’s eyes. He was young. And beautiful. His hair was dark, darker than Jim had ever seen, and his face was clean and pale. He was looking at another walker, another man, with intense eyes. 

“Merpeople are the impossible,” the other man said.

“Captain, are you suggesting that it would indeed be possible for a sentient species to have developed under the sea while also remaining undetected by anyone on land?” Jim was so distracted by the magnetic pull of the man’s voice that he nearly missed what they were saying. _Sentient species, developed under the sea. Captain._

“Maybe they have magic more advanced than us.” Jim frowned. If the terrestrials believed them to be stronger, they would attack harder. And they certainly weren’t stronger. They could barely scrape them now while the terrestrials were still clueless.

“Then for what reason have they not made contact?”

“Maybe they are making contact,” the Captain said, “maybe this is their way of saying ‘hello, we don’t want you here’.”

“If there is indeed a sentient species living underwater, and if they were indeed aware and displeased by our existence, invading their territory yet again with a military ship in an attempt to find them is not a sensible or respectful course of action.” Jim almost smiled. He was pretty, he was smart, and he seemed respectful. Openminded. If he was talking with the man who was supposedly the Captain, he must be important, and if he was important, he might be willing to help them. He sounded diplomatic enough to be-

“Better this than start bombing randomly, don’t you think?”

Three things happened in quick succession. Jim gasped, then slipped, then cursed - “Fuck!” -, then slapped the wall loudly in an attempt to regain a decent hold with arms that were shaking in fatigue. He climbed up as fast as he could not to miss any words of the most important conversation he could possibly find, his chest burning, and only noticed the man’s eyes meet his when it was too late.

The man stood up sharply and Jim was frozen.

⎈

Spock, although it was not linked to any feeling nor negative disposition, did not welcome the knowledge that he had been wrong. Being wrong meant having made a mistake. A mistake meant having erred in the ways of logic. Erring in the ways of logic meant being deficient in a skill that was considered fundamental to a Vulcan’s existence and sanity.

He had not calculated the odds of himself being wrong about the existence of merpeople, since he had thought them nonexistent. 

He had been wrong.

A gasp. A word spoken in the air. Harshly spat, short and concise, yet… melodious, mellifluous, magnetic. It drew Spock’s attention, Spock’s gaze, before he could realise he had moved.

Three meters from him, his hands latched on the edge of the dock, a man’s face was staring at him with deep, alluring blue eyes.

He appeared human. He… appeared. His eyes were not just bright, they were actively glowing. His face was not just clean, it was perfectly smooth. His lineaments were not just chiselled, they were sharp.

Spock stood up without cognisance, his mind failing to process everything he was seeing. The man was beautiful, the man was dangerous. His eyes were magnificent, his eyes were alien. His face was perfect, his face was wrong. He was different. 

He was human but his eyes were glimmering incandescently, he was human but his skin was pearl satiny, he was human but his jaw, his cheekbones were too honed. He was human but he was perfect. He was human, but he looked like a god.

He… was not human.

The Captain was moving and talking loudly beside him. Spock’s mind did not register. It was not important. Nothing was important until he could get closer, until he could extend a hand and touch that smooth skin, that silky hair, put his finger on the right points and lose himself in the glow of those ocean gleaming eyes, eyes that were staring him down, staring deeply and thoroughly inside his soul.

The feeling of warmth Spock had always associated only to a gentle touch of his mother was back, was consuming him and burning him, overwhelming all of his cells in its scalding embrace. He had to get closer, he had to see better, he had to touch. Spock took a step forward.

The man disappeared. Gelid, wet fright crashed into Spock’s chest.

Spock ran, hitting the handrail painfully and ignoring it, leaning dangerously out into the darkness of the night, towards the blackness of the sea, just in time to see a blue, shiny tail disappear between the waves, two glowing orbs looking up from the depth, their light warming away the ice that had accumulated around his heart.

He must go. He must dive; he must-

Something hit Spock’s arm, Spock’s back, hard. 

Reality crashed back inside him like a shockwave. He was surrounded by noise, by light, by smell and touch. His mind struggled to put his senses to an order, to sieve and filter what was significant and what was not after his reality had been turned upside down, after his chest had been heaved and lifted by forces unknown.

“Spock!!” Nothing had hit his arm. The Captain had been pulling him away from the railing, away from what would have certainly been a fatal fall into nothingness.

“I am awake.” Spock swallowed and cleared his throat. His mind finished working through the confusion of his senses and thoughts. His shields were blocking the intense, illogical need to run back to the railing and jump into the ocean, following the spark of a blue tail, of blue eyes. His visceral receptors were numbing the panic, the pain, the intensity of the coldness in his chest.

“What the hell was that?!” The Captain was upset. His emotions crashed against Spock’s fragile shields from their contact. Spock pulled. The hold did not give. Spock pulled harder and was suddenly turned and brought close to the Captain’s face. “Spock. You were half a step from falling off the ship! What the hell happened? Is it over?” Spock stared at Pike’s blue eyes and wondered how could he have ever defined them to be blue, when real blu was much, much different. 

He moved his gaze to the darkness beyond the railing, feeling the pull like a physical need, the desire like a knife in his chest. He studied his shields, staring into the void, into the unknown. “I am in control.”

Captain Pike waited three point two seconds before releasing him. Spock welcomed the lack of emotional transference with relief. “What happened? What did he do? You saw him too, right? I’m not crazy? Are we both out of our minds?”

“I do not know,” Spock said, not able to look away from the sea. Which question was he answering, he did not know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like before, if you find mistakes, please point them out!
> 
> Hit me up on Tumblr if you wanna chat :)


	3. Of falling and failing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find a mistake, please point it out :)

⎈

There was one single line of thought, one single word Jim’s mind was able to process. _Fuck_. 

And it was a big, huge, sparkly _fuck_ , with confetti thrown around it.

“What happened?”

“Sir, are you all right?”

“Lad, you don’t look so good.”

“Jim, answer! What the seven hells happened up there?”

Yep, that was a good question, wasn’t it? What the hells had happened up there? Jim had been staring at terrestrials dancing and drinking and singing like choked seagulls, and then. And then. 

And then one of them had talked and Jim had been like a fingerling drawn to an anglerfish, and he’d stared at him without any care for cover or safe holding, so when the other man, the older one, had mentioned bombs, he’d fallen from the foams and actually ridiculously nearly fallen off the ship. 

Who even had a voice like that? All of the other terrestrials sounded like screeching birds, how could that man sound that amazingly, unbelievably, enticingly good? Why did Jim have to choose the only ledger next to _him_?

“Jim, for the reef’s sake, what happened? You look like you saw a ghost!”

“He saw me,” Jim murmured, looking up, looking at the shadow of the ship sailing away. Was the man still bent over the edge, or was he imagining it?

“Who’s he?! Damn it, Jim, pay attention!”

“Ouch!” Jim rubbed his arm where something-no, someone-had pinched him, and looked back down to find Bones’s face one inch from his. “Bones, what the hell, get off!”

“Get off?!” Bones shouted, and his chela pinched him again, ignoring Jim’s protests. “You were staring up like a freaking sole, and you tell me to get off?! What happened, tell me who saw you, you shrimp!”

“Captain, they’re turning around.” Sulu had dived back in the water and was swimming down fast, his face frozen in panic. “We need to leave right now.”

“Dive down,” Jim ordered, the frenzy of his head making way for the instinctual need to protect his men. “Dive down towards the ship. They’ll expect us to run away, not towards. Go, go, go!”

Together they swam, naturally taking their standard chasing positions, with Jim at the point and the others opening up behind him like a skate. When they were deep enough that Jim couldn’t see the small bright spots of the fires illuminating the ship, he called a halt and looked around.

They were halfway to one of the currents that lead to the palace. Beyond that, nothing could be seen but the darkness of the sea, black and infinite all around them. There was a school of fish somewhere below them, and a scarce group of jellyfishes above them. 

“Jim,” Bones said, breathing harder than any of them, “what happened?”

Jim looked over at his friend, his mind reeling, trying to find the words. Bones had a harder time swimming than they did, with his heavy shell and his short swimming legs, and sprints like this tired him for hours, which was why he usually waited at base for them to finish missions and only later patched them up. If they had to run again, they would have to pull him. They’d be the easiest target possible: a slow one.

Jim didn’t know what to hope. 

Half of him wanted to swim back up and jump, take hold of that ledger and find that voice again. He wanted to jump on the deck and touch him, find out how his skin felt, if it was warm like Jim’s, if it was cold like a shell. He wanted to lie under the sun and hear him sing. He knew he’d be good. He had a voice so warm, so smooth, so deep, Jim just knew he’d sing just as charmingly as he spoke. And, Jim found, he wanted to sing for him. Not to trap him, not to trick him, just to sing. He wondered if they would sound good together.

The other half of him was terrified. The other half of him could picture spears falling down from the air into the water, running through his friends, running through his people, with the deep, gut wrenching knowledge that it was all his fault. That because of him, because he had been enchanted by a terrestrial’s voice, everybody would die.

Jim had always thought their powers were silly. Sirens sang to talk with whales and dolphins, to control schools of fish, sometimes even calm down sharks, and of course, they used it to enchant terrestrials and pull them under, or alter their memories. He’d learned it, he’d become good at it despite not taking it very seriously, and he’d used it. He’d never thought twice about how it would feel for the men and women they dragged under. He’d always just imagined that the spell made their mind just as blank as their faces. 

But what if it didn’t? What if, like Jim had just now, they subconsciously remained very aware of the danger and fear, of the turmoil and strain of being bewitched without being able to rationalise it? If it were so, then Jim had been actively working and witnessing the torture of hundreds and hundreds of people, and done nothing. Fuck, most of them had been turned to fish and molluscs and left alone in the middle of the ocean. Others had spent years and years in the frozen cells. Years. And he’d done nothing.

What if one had managed to get themselves back on land and turned again into a terrestrial by any sort of land magic they had? What if they only needed a confirmation, only needed to make sure the monsters that lived under the sea really existed, and Jim had just given it to them on a shell platter?

“I was up,” he started, “they were dancing and drinking, looking like they were having a party. I was about to jump back down, thinking they wouldn’t talk about missions while having fun, when I heard two men talking about us. They were sent here to find out if there’s a sentient species living underwater. And… and they saw me.”

All those people, dragged under and turned, their possessions thrown casually in the sea. Had they been aware? _Had they been aware of it all?_ Did his mother know? 

“What?” Bones barked, “you didn’t have an invisibility spell? Scotty, what the seven hells?”

“Invisibility spells work when you’re surrounded with water only, Bones. The spell changes the colour of the water around you so you’re not seen.” Jim took a deep breath. “I think the silencing spell didn’t work that well, either. I slipped and made a lot of noise,” - because I’m an _idiot_ , a damn idiot and I’ve been one for years - “ and when I climbed back up one of them was watching me like he was expecting me to reappear.”

“Only one’s not bad,” Scotty said, “they’ll think he imagined it.”

“Not only one,” Sulu said, “that one tried to follow Jim in the water, but another one was staring at him. They were sitting close.”

Staring at Jim, staring at him, staring at the barrier that divided ocean from air, sea from land, the border of discovery, of truth. Did one truly get to come back after they crossed the line? Did Jim, or was a part of him trapped on the surface, like the landpeople he’d pulled under, forever imprisoned? Was he going to be hunted to the edges of the seven seas? 

If he were, maybe Jim deserved it. Maybe he deserved that and more. 

He needed to run away. He needed to run away from his people, he needed to run away from his friends, before the terrestrials invented a way to find him. 

He needed to tell them to stop, to just hide, to never, ever, sing to a land walker again. He needed to tell them what they were doing. He needed to tell his mother. He needed to make her understand how much hurt she was causing, how much pain they were causing.

He needed to run, he needed to stay. He needed to- wait. _Another one_ was staring at him. “The one with the yellow thing on his chest and yellow hair?” Jim asked.

“That one,” Sulu confirmed.

“Fuck,” Jim spat, “fuck, fuck, fuck. He was the one talking about the mission. He said the alternative to this was bombing us.” He said the alternative to this was bombing us, and we deserve it. Say it, Jim. Tell them what you’ve done.

Say, ‘we’ve been torturing people for years’. Say, ‘our voices don’t stop their consciousness. They’re aware. They’re in pain.’ Say it’s your fault because you should’ve fucking known.

“What?” Bones wasn’t the only one shocked by the statement. The worst, though, was yet to come.

“And the other man called him Captain.”

Silence followed. Jim gathered all of the courage he had to find the force to reveal the consequences of his actions. Of his life. He’d been such an idiot, _such an idiot_ , believing himself to be above it all. Believing that the best thing he could do in his life was screw up until people stopped cooing at him while also putting on the splendid act. Toning his voice, boasting how much he could control it, never questioning it. _See, I can control that one fish only and leave the rest. Can you?_

 _See, I can tune the difference between the male ones and the female ones, between the ones with pointy ears and the ones with round ones_. 

See, I can be a total idiot.

If he had applied himself, he’d have seen it. If he had paid attention, if he hadn’t dismissed them all, his mother, her guards, his teacher, Jim would have seen it. And he would have stopped it. Because Jim, despite how much he hated it, was just like George, and his mother had been lost years and years before. She’d been lost the first time her lips had touched liquor after George had died. She’d been lost the first time Jim’s face, Jim’s eyes, had reminded her of him.

She was a queen only in name, and Sam was just as naive, just as clueless, lost in his algae experiments and never once joining any expeditions. The throne would have gone to Jim, if Jim hadn’t been such a screw up. The power would have gone to him the moment the council saw that he could put two and two together, the moment they saw that he was smart more than he was clever, the moment they saw that he was, actually, completely, similar to George. Winona would have stepped off gracefully, everyone would have turned a blind eye to the amount of alcohol that she drank, and Jim would have been married and combed and dressed to the nines, a kid on the way, but most importantly, he would have been in control.

He would have seen the mistakes and rectified them. He would have seen his mother’s crazy and stopped it. He would have stopped it all. He would have started diplomatic relations years before and he would have worked slowly to let everybody see that it was the only way of going forward. He would have been given the power of the trident and he would have turned himself into a walker and stepped on a ship to say proper hello, without the reckless search for dangerous magic he was going to have to do now.

He would have saved all of those people, but he hadn’t. He’d screwed up. He’d raged and turned his nose from the court. He’d been so wrapped up in his selfish campaign against his father’s identity that he hadn’t realised that they were comparing them because they needed to. Because George’s death had taken a heavy toll and seeing him reborn through Jim was their way of coping. And Jim? Jim had been an idiot because nobody would recognise that his science project was good without comparing him to his dead dad. Jim had been an utter, complete, reckless idiot, and he’d left thousands of people under the rule of a drunken monarch that was slowly turning into a dictator.

He’d screwed up and there was nothing he could do to solve it. George’s name wouldn’t help now, and nothing else in Jim’s life had ever got him out of bad situations. He’d screwed up and he’d felt so proud of himself. 

“I screwed up,” he murmured. He should have stayed in the frozen cell. That was what he deserved for the rest of his life, for his pettiness and his selfishness. The coldness he felt in the mornings, the throbbing feeling of ice in his blood, the agony he relived in his dreams, he deserved it. He deserved much more. He’d carry it with him for the rest of his life, he’d stop trying to use the sun to make it go away, because he’d been there two weeks and the people he’d dragged under had been there for _years_ , all for a pat on the head. If he couldn’t rot there with them, he would carry the memento inside him until the day he died, so he would never forget what he had done. Never, not even for a second, forget what he was. 

“No, lad, listen,” Scotty started.

“No.” Jim shook his head, his throat tightened. So many people. So many fucking people, for what? His pride. His rebellion. His idiocy. “No. I really, really screw up. Oh my gods.” The pain of the cold intensified if Jim thought about it. If he focused on it, on the ice of the cell in his flesh, it became more real. He deserved it. He deserved much worse, because there had been so many people, so many, so young, so many, he couldn’t even count them and he could count _anything_ , that many. All his fault. All completely his fault, because he was an idiot.

As Jim crumbled down, Bones caught him. As Jim shook and sobbed, Bones held him and soothed him. As Jim counted the infinite numbers, Bones whispered soft words of comfort.

Pavel joined, hugging Jim from behind. Then Sulu, then Scotty. Surrounded by his friends, their heat was chasing away the cold, Jim allowed himself ten last seconds of comfort. Ten last seconds of warmth before he started his sentence. 

His tears mixing with the ocean, he looked up at the edge, at the sky, at the darkness of the night. 

He wished he could have said goodbye to the sun.

  
⎈

  
Spock was sent to his room after the third time Captain Pike noticed him staring at the ocean.

“Can you see yourself? You look like a starved man whose favourite feast is just one step past the railing! I’m not watching you throw yourself after him again, just go!”

Spock could not, in fact, see himself. He did not realise the illogicality of the Captain’s words until the door to his quarters closed behind him. That, more than the visceral, indomitable necessity of diving into the depths of the sea made him realise how much the experience had debilitated him.

Perhaps being confined to a closed space was for the best, until he could restore his shields and rearrange his thoughts into the orderly disposition he had built through the years.

Spock undressed slowly, folding each item of clothing carefully before placing it on his dresser. In his head, he started repeating the mantras he had been taught in his youth. One must always be in control of their emotions, always remember who they were, always remember their duty.

“I am in control of my emotions. I am an officer of the Navy Fleet of the Federation. My duty is to serve and discover, seek out new lands and new civilisations.”

Spock lighted the candles he had brought for his deeper meditation sessions and turned the lamp oil off with a short blow of air. The three resulting red flames illuminated his room only partially, as five seventh of its surface fell into darkness. Darkness, dim and caliginous, nothing like the stygian gloom of the moonless nights in Shi’Kahr and nothing like the Cimmerian darkness of the abyss of the sea. It did not scare him like the blacks of the desert and it did not call him like the deepest blue of the ocean. It felt strange, it felt wrong, it felt- No. Darkness had no connotation but the lack of light. It did not scare nor lure him, it just was, independently from him, and to link any emotional connections to it was illogical, meaningless, unacceptable. 

“I am in control of my emotions. I am an officer of the Navy Fleet of the Federation. My duty is to serve and discover, seek out new lands and new civilisations.”

He sat on his bed and crossed his legs, arranging his limbs into position. _If the mind goes astray, one must first focus on the flesh_. Vulcan children were taught at the age of seven to relax all of their muscles simultaneously to improve their detachment from the material world and from their sense of muscular proprioception. It was a necessary step to master before learning to dissociate one’s conscience from the other eleven senses; touch, sight, taste, smell, hearing, pain, temperature, equilibrium, visceral parasympathetic system, visceral sympathetic system, telepathy. That night, Spock’s focus was so unstable he found he could not manage even such a simple initial step. 

“I am in control of my emotions. I am an officer of the Navy Fleet of the Federation. My duty is to serve and discover, seek out new lands and new civilisations.”

Spock was grateful for his private quarters more than any time before. If any other Vulcan were to witness his inability to perform the most basic meditation techniques, he would have undoubtedly been declared unfit for duty and forced to be hospitalised and undergo a healing trance. Under no circumstances could Spock allow that to happen. 

His mother had read him several Human books in his childhood. The most frequent one was Alice in Wonderland. It was one Spock remembered well. As his mother said, it helped to connect one’s identity and one’s sensitivity with the outer world when ‘up was down and left was right’. Spock had always considered her interpretation of the book very liberal and had never understood how such firm concepts like direction and morality could be altered. He had been wrong. Apparently, his mother had foreseen a deficiency in him, one which he had just discovered. Spock’s world, his mind, had not been able to interpret and elaborate the experience on the deck. He had not been able to stop his desires from overtaking his logic. Up was officially down, and left was officially right. The most logical thing he could think of, if any rationale was left inside him, was to follow more of his mother’s advice.

 _If you’re struggling, break it down. Go step by step_. Spock had always considered himself proficiently meticulous, so much that his mother’s suggestion had always seemed illogical; he had arrogantly believed that his methods had already been flawlessly thorough. It did not feel illogical right now. Spock found himself uncertain even about the precision of his breathing sequences, despite knowing the feeling was erroneous; had his respirations been fallacious, he would have started feeling the automatic symptoms of general and cerebral hypoxia. 

Step by step, the relaxation of his muscular system did not seem as insurmountable. He started with the ends of his toes, contracting and releasing the muscles until he was certain he had regained perfect control of their neuromuscular junctions. Then, he deliberately relaxed them and moved to the metatarsal junctions, repeating the process with the relative muscles. 

Slowly and steadily, Spock progressed in his muscle relaxation until he reached the final steps of loosening his facial muscles. When he was finished, he realised he could tune out all sensations related to touch; the roughness of the sheets, his skin against his skin. He moved on to set aside his sense of taste and hearing. Behind his closed eyes, he disconnected his sight receptors with the cognitive elaborations of his visual cortex.

He found difficulties in detaching himself from his sense of smell. His hair, his skin, the clothes on the dresser, the boots on the floor, they all carried the salty, liberating, and humid smell of the ocean. The smell of melting candle wax was not strong enough to cover it. Normally, the sea scent helped Spock reach his focus. Now, it reminded Spock of blue waters, blue scales, blue fins, blue eyes, blue lights, a lithe voice, a smooth skin, a- No. He could not lose himself again.

_I am in control of my emotions. I am an officer of the Navy Fleet of the Federation. My duty is to serve and discover, seek out new lands and new civilisations._

He focused again on his sense of smell and its switch. Tried again. Failed. Try again. Focus on the receptor junctions and inhibit awareness transmission. Fail, re-try. Focus on the elaborative olfactory cortex and detach receptor synapses. Fail, re-try. Focus on olfactory cortex and inhibit synaptic uptake of neurotransmitter. Fail, re-try. Focus on elaborative olfactory cortex and generate fabricated smell to substitute neural transmission and inhibit signal reception from peripheral receptors. Succeed, pursue. Focus on elaborative olfactory cortex and inhibit fabricated smell elaboration, maintaining inhibition of peripheral receptors. Succeed, proceed.

Sense by sense, Spock detached his consciousness from the material world and regained meditative control of his mind. 

With reluctance, it was time to tackle the stray thoughts and desires swimming wildly around him, escaped from the systematic differentiation and organisation his healthy mind was set in. He started combing through them one by one, _step by step_ , analysing them and taking away their power over his psyche, focusing on building stronger shields.

He regained his sense of time and started counting the hours. Two, three, four, four and seven ninth. 

The only stray thought Spock could not win over was the illogical feeling that the ship was going in the wrong direction.

  
⎈

  
Bones had listened to Jim’s story, his emotions, his panic and trance as he’d been enchanted by the terrestrial’s voice. He’d listened to Jim’s theory that the land walkers must have the same experience. He hadn’t agreed out loud. His horrified face had told Jim all he needed.

“I had some kind of a presentment,” he’d muttered, “but I kept telling myself that we weren’t the monsters, they were, we were just keeping them from hurting us and the sea, without hurting them back. Years of medical experience and I’m still a damn fool.” Bones had had some kind of presentment, but he hadn’t told Winona because Winona was completely out of her mind with fear and she would have imprisoned him for life. Bones had had some kind of presentment and if Jim hadn’t been such a screwup he would have been able to say it, and Jim would have put a stop to it.

“It’s not your fault, Bones. You couldn’t have known. My mother wouldn’t have listened, anyway.” Jim would have listened. But Jim had been too busy erasing the f-word from the world. He’d been too busy letting his hair grow so they wouldn’t be like George’s, he’d been too busy ignoring his duties and his responsibilities because following was being just like him.

“It’s not yours either.”

“Yes,” Jim had said, “yes it is.”

They wouldn’t be certain until Jim could talk to his mother and her guards. That had to wait, despite Bones’s restlessness.

“Think about it, Bones. The moment she realises I went up to them, she’ll flip. Maybe she’ll think that I’m on their side and kill me with them, no mercy, to leave no doubts. What if she only needs to wave her trident to kill them all? I know you want to help them, so do I. But we need to be smart.”

“We need to do the right thing, Jim!”

“Right now that’s making a plan. A good plan. And stopping the other teams from dragging any new men under. We need to follow that ship and make sure they all get home safely. Then, we go to her, we find a way to explain to the council and save the others.”

“I don’t like sitting on my ass while people suffer, Jim, even if it’s terrestrials.”

“Neither do I, but that’s the best thing to do. This is my responsibility. Please,” Jim begged, “don’t make me order you.”

“All right,” Bones murmured, “all right, kid. I trust you.”

He shouldn’t. Nobody should. Jim didn’t deserve trust. “Thank you, Bones.”

They stayed hidden all night long. The ship didn’t stop hovering and searching the area, unnerving them and making Jim’s barely present control very strained.

They made a plan.

They would follow the ship and see it make it safely back to port on land. Other teams would certainly see it, but they could try and hide the hull with a hiding spell and pretend they were already on task to sink it if any other team showed up. His mother’s guards rarely surfaced for a mission, but if they did, Jim was ready to fight them with any fazing spell he had in his arsenal.

After that, they’d work on saving the prisoners. If the council didn’t rule in Jim’s favour, and they probably wouldn’t after all the shit Jim had done, they had to find a way to get them on one of the abandoned islands ships often stopped by without being noticed or stopped. Jim would distract his mother to the best of his abilities. It wasn’t the soundest plan he’d made up and it would need refinement, but he was too focused on getting the ship safely back home to be able to think clearly about anything else. The idea of the smooth-voiced man ending up in a frozen cell was unthinkable, unacceptable. Impossible.

He didn’t tell Bones that he could still hear it, hear _him_ , but he knew his friend was suspecting something. He didn’t ask, though. When the voice got so intense it covered everything else, he waited for Jim to look away from the surface, to snap out of it, and then repeated his words.

After that, their job wouldn’t be done. His mother’s people wouldn’t care about hurting or torturing more terrestrials if she ordered them to go on. They’d take her side and exile him. Jim had to find a way to let the land walkers know. He had to warn them, he had to protect them. He had to stop them from being taken after so many years of ignoring the horror that was happening because of his superficiality. 

They had to find a way to turn him into a terrestrial, especially after what he’d heard on the ship. In his siren form, he wouldn’t be trusted. Maybe he’d even be killed. Jim undoubtedly deserved it, but the thousands of landmen and landwomen who would die if that happened was unacceptable. So was passing the burden to anyone on his team. The fault was his, and his alone. He couldn’t let them risk their lives for his mistakes, he already had too many souls on his conscience.

That part of the mission would be the hardest, but Jim didn’t have to think about it for a while. 

Scotty was working on a makeshift chariot. Bone’s legs and chelas and Scotty’s tentacles didn’t have the same speed and resistance of Jim, Chekov, and Sulu’s tails, and the only way they’d be able to keep up with the ship was with external help. Jim had proposed he pull the chariot, but everybody had disagreed. Pavel had gone and looked for dolphins.

It had made Jim nauseous, but he could see that there was no alternative. He still couldn’t help but wonder if they were forcing animals too, if they too had a frightened, confused awareness that they were pushing under layers and layers of mind control.

“They’re dolphins, Captain,” Scotty said, “you might say that of any other fish. But dolphins? Barely any spell. The little lads even fetch without you asking. They like playing with us, they like swimming with us. We’ll give them food and they’ll be happy to help.”

“But-“

“Pavel promised he’d ask for permission before putting the reigns,” Sulu reminded him.

“Come on, lad, help me out with this.” Scotty’s tentacles swirled as they moved between algae and fish bones. “Getting your hands dirty always helps. Let Sulu think of the evasive patterns for that bloody ship, he can do that without your help, right? Anyway, these land fellas, do they ever give up? Not a minute of sleep because of those bloody idiots! I’ve seen sperm whales give up sooner, I’ll tell you.”

Jim helped Scotty, but working didn’t put a stop to the chaos in his mind. Part of him was still on the adrenaline crazy ride of being enchanted by a voice. He could remember it perfectly. If he focused enough, he could hear it at will. He both dreaded and hoped that it would eventually go away.

When the surface became tinged orange and pink from the first rays of the rising sun, the ship gave up on the search, finally pulling away. Jim and Scotty reinforced the reigns and checked the knots, and all together they followed the ship into the day.

  
⎈

  
Humans share uncountable sayings, most of which are illogical. Some, however, carry truth. One of them is, ‘the night will bring you counsel’, or similar phrasings with the same verbal meaning, depending on the geographical location and relative cultural prevalence.

That night did not bring Spock counsel, though Spock exited his meditative trance with the awareness of having regained most of his mental stability. His shields were working at suboptimal levels, nonetheless they were re-built and holding. He would require additional meditation hours during the day and the night, a pattern he would follow for at least one week, in order to bring them back to their utmost efficiency. They seemed at least to have managed to block the unremitting, irrational sensation that the Enterprise was sailing in the wrong direction.

Spock did not compute the possibility of re-experiencing the events of the night before in his calculations. He would spend his days of recovery below deck in his room, working on navigation and routes and finishing the list of missing individuals to the best of his abilities. The resources available to complete the job were scarce and confused and would require his complete attention. They would entail a process of listing and categorising, followed by multiple classifications based on priority, reliability, and locative frequency, and an eventual re-filtering of the obtained data to determine which cases were more statistically significant. After that, the tracing of the routes would be a simple mathematical issue of odds, geometry, and statistics. The whole ordeal would be parallel and analogous to Spock’s own mental processing and elaboration, thus allowing him to re-strengthen his brain patterns by repeating them to solve an external conundrum.

The similarities between the tortuous data and Spock’s mental turmoil were indeed significant. The data was held in regulation-approved standard statements and listed correctly in the Navy’s annuals. Comparably, Spock’s mind was organised in the orderly structures and lines he had built over his life, thanks to the night of intense meditation he had undergone. However, just like the data was disarrayed and deficient while still being correctly inscribed, Spock’s mind had been transformed into a tidy maze of convoluted, chaotic and confusing thoughts. 

This dualism was a source of uneasiness. The more Spock reflected on it, the more it became tortuous. The more it became tortuous, the more Spock was forced to admit that any attempt of rationalising his experience and mental dishevelment was… pointless. Never once in his life had he encountered anything that could not be solved, or at least clarified, by rationale and logic. The knowledge of his current deficient mental control generated further irregularities, which were brought to a radical maximum when one name fell into Spock’s line of sight, between the many. Ensign Nyota Uhura. He found himself losing focus on the mission data, an intense feeling of heat and itch spreading through his body and skin all the way to his hands as he was filled with the irrational impulse of tearing papers and books, violently push the inkwell off his desk and overturn the desk itself. 

“That’s not an effect of siren magic, Spock,” Doctor M’Benga said when Spock explained him the bizarre physical symptoms he was experiencing. “The heat, the itching to break something; that’s frustration. You must have felt it before. It happens in Vulcans and Humans both.” He did not inform the doctor that the feelings had exacerbated when he had read the name of Nyota.

Spock had not been accused of feeling frustration or similar emotions since his childhood years. It was an illogical suggestion; Spock remembered how the feeling had enveloped and burned his younger self’s body and mind, depriving him of any control. It was not the same. Spock was not consumed by it, merely worried by the physical manifestation of this new development of irrationality. 

The doctor had suggested physical activity accompanied by light meditation to “burn it off”. Spock could increase his daily meditation hours from five to six, though that was the absolute limit. He needed at least eight hours of sleep to allow his mind to rest after such long meditation sessions, and he needed at least ten hours of work per day to produce a satisfactory conspectus of the data he had at his disposal, to push down the foreign presence at the back of his mind with repetitive work. Any less than that, and the presence won.

He could not practice physical activity under the decks, and he had no intention of exiting his self imposed quarantine until his control was thoroughly restored. 

Captain Pike did not seem pleased with Spock’s choice of conduct, though he did not voice his displeasure nor order him to cease it. He looked at him with eyes filled with shameless human sadness and pity, then he smiled for averagely zero point seven seconds and walked away. The manifestation of simultaneous physical displays of opposite emotions reminded Spock strongly of his mother’s habit of doing the same, which left him with the acute awareness of the distance that separated him from her in a moment of such fragility.

He should write her a letter.

The Enterprise sailed for five more days without witnessing or encountering anything unusual. They did not cross paths with any ship, merchant or of the Federation, nor did they witness any phenomena possibly linked to the presence of merpeople. 

In those five days, Captain Pike visited Spock’s quarters seven times, disrupting Spock’s calm with a bitter, tangible projection of emotional doubt. If Spock was to assign an emotional meaning to Captain’s Pike visits, it would not be a gesture of companionship nor an inspection born out of worry. Captain Pike repeated the same behavioural patterns all through his visits. 

He would knock to be admitted. He would open the door, look over Navigation papers and maps without focusing his attention to the information they contained. He would ask Spock if everything was ‘proceeding all right’ and if he was ‘feeling any better’. Spock would answer positively and offer him a seat. The Captain would refuse, staring at Spock but unable to stare at him in the eyes, conveying the need to externalise information that was apparently making him uncomfortable. 

The nature of this information was undetermined. Spock had inquired after it once, on the fourth visit, to determine if his hypothesis had been correct or if what he had learned about human behaviour and analysis had been lost alongside his control on the night of the party. The Captain had rushed his exit, denying any need to convey any ‘urgent’ or ‘important’ information, insisting Spock ‘didn’t need to worry about this too’. 

Spock had not asked again. He believed there was an eighty-eight point seven-nine-two chance that Captain Pike was attempting to discuss the possibility that he was emotionally compromised. He did not wish for the Captain’s doubts to become a reality. On the next visits, Spock behaved exemplarily in an attempt to dissuade him from voicing the topic, yet the Captain’s behaviour did not change. If possible, his agitation increased.

On the sixth day, the route Spock had programmed led them to a group of seven small islands where Captain Pike decided to temporarily stop. They were not known for holding any sources of potable water nor significant nourishments, though the captain insisted that the crew was in need of ‘a break’. 

Spock did not understand until he went over deck for the first time after the accident. 

The crew were dutifully following docking procedures without significant anomalies in their behavioural patterns. However, they were not in good conditions. Spock walked on the main deck and he found himself overwhelmed by anxiety. The intensity of the emotional transference was such that it took him four point eight three two seconds of self-evaluation before he realised that the feeling was not a product of his mind, but the manifestation of the crew’s which was trespassing his shields with surprising strength.

He shielded himself against it, though he could not achieve complete detachment. He removed himself from the quarterdeck and walked the corridor between his room and the captain’s Great Cabin. The Captain understood the reason for Spock’s presence immediately.

“You felt it? The Vulcans have been experiencing nausea and fever from it since yesterday.”

“Considering the intensity of the emotional projections of the crew, it is fortunate none of them fared worse.” Spock had not exited his room once in the last five days, and the yeomen that he had employed to carry papers and ink to and from the navigation room had seemed perfectly normal and composed. “I had not expected it. What is the reason behind this uneasiness? Our past days of sailing have been uneventful.”

“It’s the calm,” Captain Pike said, “that’s what’s grilling them. They saw what happened and they now know that the sirens exist, and they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“From our last conversation, I was under the impression that most of the crew already believed in the merpeople’s existence. What is different now?”

“To believe in something and to be proven right are two very, very different things, Spock.”  
Indeed they were. The crew appreciated the short shore leave Captain Pike had granted them, though none of them personally came in touch with the water unless it was absolutely necessary. Spock himself found his perception of his surroundings altered as he watched the men rowing the lifeboats to the islands. He felt the unexplainable sensation of being under observation. It only stopped when Spock walked back under the decks, away from the open air. Captain Pike and Number One joined the crew on the islands, though Commander Nhan stayed on board with him and three other engineers.

“Of all the people I’d have marked for superstitious, it wouldn’t have been you.” Spock had been standing on the forecastle deck in an attempt to distinguish the islands and compare their dimensions and borders to the ones drawn on the Enterprise’s maps. Thrice had he turned his gaze away from his study to check the surface of the sea that surrounded the ship on his sides. Never once had he found anything but the azure colour of crystalline water, though the presence at the back of his mind kept pulsing, increasing in its intensity when he settled on random spots.

“Perhaps due to the crew’s collective anxiety, I am under the impression that I am being observed from the sea. I am not sure ‘being superstitious’ can be considered a valid definition of my behaviour, especially after the events that occurred the night of the party.”

“You checked once,” she said, “there’s nothing there. Please don’t do it while I’m here, you’re freaking me out.”

“You are not experiencing similar symptoms?”

“Yeah, I am, that’s why I don’t stay over deck.” Silence fell as Commander Nhan stayed at Spock’s side, contradicting her own statement. “Do you think we’re imagining it?”

“The collective fear and uncontrolled emotional transference might have increased our collective sensory awareness, thus generating the fabricated feeling of being observed.”

“You said _might_ ,” Commander Nhan said, her tone slightly accusing.

“Unfortunately, few things in our universe work on a hundred percent statistical accuracy. Everything might and might not be.” And Spock _might_ have a radar the merman had implanted in his head, though he did not know how, nor how to erase it. He could only suffocate it, bury it, ignore it. Pretend he was imagining it, pretend it was just another stray thought that escaped the rigour of his meditation.

“Yeah, but you said _might_ and you never say it. You just say the chance.” She paused again. “I think they have a way of hiding themselves. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Without it, we’d have discovered them sooner.”

“Your logic is sound.” Spock forced himself not to check his surroundings again. It was illogical. If he was being observed, then the concealments were too strong for him to discern anything, therefore it was pointless to check repeatedly.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Commander Nhan sighed. “I’ll go back down and figure out a spell to reinforce the hull, you know, just in case. Wanna come help?”

Spock’s duty as temporary Navigator was to update the maps, and he was not finished with that task as of yet. He had barely completed thirty three point seven two five percent of his visual comparisons, and he had yet to use his spy glass. Logic and duty dictated he stay on the forecastle.

“That is acceptable,” he said, and followed Commander Nhan below deck, closing the door between himself and the eyes of the sea.

The shore leave lasted two days. No member of the crew appeared to be enjoying being back on board and back into the expanse of the sea. Their fear and agitation grated at Spock’s healing shields, adding thirty-four minutes to his daily meditations hours just to reinforce the damage he accumulated above board.

They would not encounter land for ten more days, sailing on a route well known for its tempestuous winds and violent waves. The feeling of being observed when out in the open subsided, though crew morale did not improve. Rumours circulated quickly, carrying theories of sailors and fishermen who believed the area of sea to be turbulent because of the merpeople’s magic. Little could be done to persuade them of the contrary.

Still, they sailed. The trust placed on the captain’s persona was remarkable. In these adverse and tremulous conditions, probability of mutiny rose to eighty three percent or higher on any ship. No such thing was brought forward or discussed on the Enterprise. Not even when, eight ours and thirty six minutes after sailing away form the islands, the storm hit.

Spock chose to stay above board. In an emergency, all personnel was required to divert their attention to emergency protocols and procedures, any secondary task was to be abandoned in favour of the matter at hand. Spock had immediately ordered to clear the deck and had overseen the work, holding himself to the railings of the forecastle and orchestrating the securing of all deck objects. Now, practical decisions had to be made.

“We should run for cover, Captain,” Spock said, climbing the stairs to the sterncastle deck and attempting not to fall. The railing was creaking under his grip, a sign that the renovations the Enterprise had undergone had not been optimal. “If we turn around now and sail for the islands we have a seventy six point three-four-eight chance of survival.”

“I know, I know!” The Captain was holding the wheel tightly, a position he was not accustomed to take. Spock looked around to search for Number One, though she was nowhere to be seen. “Put up the storm sails and secure the riggings! No sea anchor yet, we might make it without it!”

“Yes, Sir.” Spock was halfway down the stairs when the ship was hit by a wave on the side, and he toppled on the ground, covered in sea water. He checked his surroundings to see if any crew member on the quarter deck had been injured, but did not check over the railings. If anyone had fallen off, nothing could be done.

He stood up and walked to the stairs of the main deck, holding himself against the railing and looking out for Commander Nhan. She was up on the main deck’s ratlines, her body swaying in the wind. It was an unfortunate position to be in during a storm. Spock had only experienced it twice, and he remembered clearly how fragile his hold on the ropes had seemed against the raging force of a storm.

“Commander,” he called, his throat hurting from the salty water he was breathing and the loud volumes of his words, “we have orders to put up the storm sails and secure the riggings.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do, Spock!” Embracing one of the ropes, she used her free hand to gesture to the boom of the main sail. Spock realised what she was attempting to do and felt a deep seated wave of admiration and fear for her sake. Commander Nhan was attempting to use the shrouds to jump to the main boom, where the storm trysail was blocked by tangled ropes.

“Do you require assistance?” Spock asked.

“No, go set up the storm jib! It’s trimmed to the rail!” Spock knew where the storm jib was located, though it would not be constructive to inform her of that.

He climbed down another set of stairs, this time unscathed, and ran across the main deck, ducking barrels which had escaped their securings and slipping on the wet floor. He added waterproof wax to the list of tasks and repairs he would ask Captain Pike to approve as soon as they exited the storm.

He climbed up the forecastle deck fighting against the sways and ignoring the pain in his ribs and legs as he repeatedly hit against the wood, carried by the violence of the storm. He found three sailors attempting to secure the riggings of the forestay sail and called them to attention.

“Ensign T’Arean, finish the task at hand on your own. Ensign Perkou, undo the trimmings of the storm jib. Ensign M’anadee, check the ropes on the bowstrip, if they do not give then we need to climb down and untangle them.” 

“Aye, Sir!” They all said, running to their tasks. 

Spock followed Ensign Perkou to the storm sail and helped him to free it. The wind had increased, raising droplets of water that hit them like grains of sand, scorching gelidly in the wind. Spock’s hands were numb, and so were his feet. There was no surface of his body that had not been drenched in sea water. 

“All the ropes are nominal on the bowstrip, Sir,” Ensign M’anadee said, joining Spock and Ensign Perkou on the storm jib. Together they freed it, and Spock immediately walked to the lever to pull it up. It did not give. They all looked up, holding themselves with frigid hands on the wet railings and squinting in the darkness, their eyes assaulted with water and wind.

“It’s stuck over there on the foremast, Sir! I see it, I can climb up!”

“No,” Spock ordered, “I will go. Stay here and hold the sail down until we can pull it up.”

Lighting struck, twenty meters from the Enterprise’s decks, illuminating the ratline that linked the forecastle deck to the foremast, like a haunting premonition. When Spock reached its ropes, thunder followed, booming and violent, obscuring all noise but its heart-stopping clamour.

At the Academy, Cadets were taught that the most dangerous jobs were not to be undertaken by senior officers, but by ensigns and simple sailors instead. Officers were the heart of the ship, and the most qualified to exit a dangerous situation losing the minimum possible number of crew members. They were not to be sacrificed.

On the Enterprise, Captain Pike lived by the rule that no order could be issued by a superior officer if they were not willing to carry it out themselves. Spock agreed with the Captain’s assessment. Senior officers were generally more proficient and therefore more likely to succeed than any other inferior officer, and they had more experience on the ship. Furthermore, placing themselves in danger instead of their inferiors increased trust and morale.

Therefore, after looking on his left to the shrouds of the main deck where Commander Nhan was climbing down after having successfully freed and raised the storm trysail, Spock grabbed the ratline and pulled himself up.

The wind increased in speed as Spock climbed. The ropes were drenched in water and slippery, and the shrouds were moved by the tempest, swirling and swaying, bringing his body with them in a dangerous bounce and fall pattern with no discernible rhythm. All around him, the blackness of the storm was thundering and booming, lightnings illuminating the obscurity at irregular intervals, close and far from the ship.

Three times Spock found himself almost losing his grip on the ropes, but he climbed on, his feet tangling and his hands bleeding, getting closer and closer to the foremast. Below him, blurred figures were running and working around the places where the sea anchor was located. Spock silently willed them to accelerate.

He was two meters from his objective when the Enterprise was shaken by another sideways wave. Spock’s feet faltered, and lost their footing. His hands grasped the ropes as hard as he could as the ship trembled and rolled, lurching on its side, leaving Spock to dangle in the void, the wind spinning and lifting him as he held to the ropes with his hands, gripping as hard as he could.

Then, lighting struck the Enterprise. Its blinding light fell on the foremast, breaking the shrouds and the ratlines, burning him, scorching him, ripping open the skin of his arms. 

Spock found himself falling, his scream choked back by his surprise, by the force of the impact against the water. His hands and arms were bleeding, and a wave hit and swirled him, and he rolled and rolled and rolled, messily, his limbs flailing, his mind desperately trying to regain direction as he was buried by the water. He was hit on the back, on the legs, on the head. He tried to swim, to wriggle, to move, but the ropes had fallen with him, had swirled with him, and he was trapped. 

Spock had been taught that in one’s last moments, it was wise to accept death. He had thought he would welcome it. 

It did not happen.

Panic hit, destroying Spock’s emotional control, destroying his shields, and he sent a wave of fear and desperation that would never be heard, never be felt, because he was drowning underwater in a sea of green blood. 

Spock had not even said a proper goodbye to his mother.

He had not even taken a last breath of air. The burn in his lungs overwhelmed him. Breathing was illogical, breathing was unacceptable, breathing would kill him, it would kill him, it would burn more than the lack of oxygen, it was illogical, it was unacceptable, he was aware, he was consciously aware it was wrong, he knew, he knew, he must wait, to swim up, to break free, yet up and down were indiscernible, he was lost, was he descending or ascending in the frigid water that burned and burned and burned and-

His mother only wished to give him physical comfort, never pushing him to accept it, and Spock had refused her the hug he had known she was hoping for, that day on the decks.

Spock breathed in with a hiccup that stabbed his chest. The water didn’t simply burn, it set his chest ablaze, it choked him, it set on fire, it scorched. 

His body shook and trembled, his arms and legs spreading out and not flailing, his control slipping.

He had not written her a letter, not even the one all sailors carried, with blue ink on white paper, the one to be given their families in case of their premature departure.

His eyes were closing. 

Nothing would be left of him.

The last thing Spock remembered was the intense gleam of two blue, blue eyes, staring at him in the darkness.

Then, void.

  
⎈

  
Jim didn’t even know what he was doing anymore. The storm had hit, they had tried to cast spells to keep the boat afloat but none had seemed to work, and then one of the other hunting teams had showed up, making more waves, making them in all directions, making them tall enough to sink the whole thing. 

He could barely remember what he’d told them to get them to leave.

He could barely remember anything beside the moment the man had fallen into the water, anything but his panic, so alive in Jim’s heart. Jim had swam to him before Bones could stop him. Other bodies, dead bodies, were floating in the ocean, but Jim had known the moment he’d seen him that he was the one with the voice, and nothing in the world could have stopped him from reaching him.

The moments after where a blur. Untangling and cutting those strange non-weed ropes, watching as Bones cast spells and spells to get ocean water out of his body, then swimming, swimming as fast as he could, leaving the others behind and swimming with the man held safely in a bubble, making a five hours trip in three, and finally, finally, reaching the islands they’d left that afternoon.

The man now lay on the sand, illuminated by the moon and the stars. His feet and legs were still in the water, but Bones had assured him that the most important part to keep dry was only his face, and only to be careful of his arms and hands, where green blood poured out from his untreatable wounds. Jim was scared that the man was going to blow up like the cadavers, that the sea would hurt him more, like the air would have dried Jim to a slow, painful death, but Bones had promised him times and times again that Terrestrials didn’t suffer in the water like fish suffered in the air.

The rain was falling down on them. It was heavy and cold, it raised sand and rippled the ocean’s surface with white droplets jumping in every direction. Rain had always tasted good to Jim. It was as sweet as river water, but it was cleaner, purer. It tasted like the sky, like it was trying to reunite itself with the ocean, like thousands and thousands of extended hands and fingers that joined and touched, met, caressed. 

Bones had told Jim to be careful and cover the man’s face if the rain got too thick, less he stop breathing again. He wasn’t, though. Droplets and droplets were cascading on his face, on his eyes and nose and mouth, and he kept breathing. His chest was moving. It was slow, up and down, up and down, but it was there. He was shell cold, but when Jim had searched for his heart he’d found a steady beating on his right side. It was the wrong place to have a heart, but it was there, and it was beating, and Jim hoped that nothing was wrong, that all terrestrials had it there and nothing had happened to this man’s heart in the minutes it had taken him to reach him.

Jim was lying on his side, his hands in the sand, inches from the man’s body. Every now and then he swam back into the sea to get another breath of water. Every time he did, his eyes didn’t leave the man’s form, afraid that something else might come and take him, afraid that the team that had showed up had followed him, that the man would be taken away and killed, another black mark on Jim’s conscience. 

They were so similar, and yet so different. His skin was rougher, less sleek, and colder. His face was rounder, his lips fuller, his ears pointy. His eyebrows were swept up. His legs and feet were just as strange as they looked from afar, but powerful, filled with muscle, well defined. 

He was so strange, and he was so beautiful, and the idea that those hands had invented some of the things Jim had collected and studied was overwhelming. 

Jim had watched him for two days. The man had known, or at least Jim thought he did, because he kept looking in Jim’s direction below the water, no matter how many times he moved and changed side, with such a sharp precision that he’d worried that he’d somehow screwed up Pavel’s hiding spell. He hadn’t, though. Jim didn’t know what the man would do if he were to see him, tail and all, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be turning back again with a blank expression, despite the crazy beating of his heart each time their eyes met, the strange pull at the back of his head.

The man always had a blank expression, with everybody, no matter what he was saying, which kinda made Jim want to be the one who finally cracked it. He also carried papers and small metallic things with him, and pointed them at the sky or at the horizon, taking notes. 

And his voice. His voice had been just as warm, just as enticing as the first time he’d heard it.   
Maybe thanks to the water, or maybe because he was paying more attention, he hadn’t been charmed nor enchanted by it. He’d just listened, often with his eyes closed, hidden in the ships’s shadow, away from the gentle warmth of the sun, the warmth his prisoners didn’t have, the warmth he didn’t deserve. He spoke short, concise sentences, his tone stable, never rising, never tinging with anger or scorn. He gave orders with the same strictness and stability with which he held himself, his hands behind his back, his shoulders straight. He sighed and he hummed, maybe without even noticing. 

Jim wanted to hear him again. He wanted to hear him forever. He couldn’t, though. The man wouldn’t wake for long hours. Bones had been certain of it. 

He still had at least two hours alone with him before his team caught up. Bones would scan him and visit him again, and if he was fine, they’d go back into hiding. Jim couldn’t risk being seen again.

In his sleep, he was different. His face wasn’t serious, but neutral, his lineaments not strict but composed. His body was relaxed, not tight. He was beautiful, in some ways even more than when he was awake, and Jim could have stared at him for hours, marking all the details that made the man different from him.

Yet he wished more than anything to wake him up. The terrestrial was there, right in front of him, in his hands’ reach, real and breathing, alive and concrete. The reality of having him there was unconceivable. He was there, a man just like Jim, yet he had the most beautiful voice and the most beautiful hands, hands that could build ships and write fragile books with so many slim pages and small words, hands that could bend metal and strike slim strings to play music, hands that could write and draw and make stuff, tons of stuff, any kind of stuff.

He was there, and Jim was there, and until he slept they were free, and the possibilities were endless. Until he slept, the man didn’t know he was lying next to his enemy, he didn’t know he was lying next to a murderer, a monster. Until he slept, Jim could look at him and feel his heart and count the small fingers of his feet and pretend he wasn’t a prince and he didn’t have a duty. 

Until he slept, Jim wasn’t a soldier and the man wasn’t a target. Jim wasn’t a ghost and the man wasn’t a hunter.

Nothing tickled Jim’s imagination like potentiality shrouded into a world that hadn’t yet been forced to come to terms with reality, with duty, with responsibility, with guilt, with his ability to screw everything up.

Until the man slept, Jim could look for the sake of looking, touch for the sake of touching, he could sing for the sake of singing. He could sink his hands in the wet sand and feel a portal, not a border; a doorway, not a wall. He could study him and only see beauty to admire, not weakness to exploit. He could use his voice and do it to be heard, not to enchant.

Until the man slept, Jim couldn’t screw it up.

The ocean had been cold, though nothing like the cells, and Jim’s skin was still tingling from it. Below it, looking at the man that slept over a sea of possibilities, the ice in his veins, the ice from the prison, dwindled. Jim let it. For just one moment, he let it flow unnoticed, let himself feel some warmth.

Whatever happened, whatever punishment he would get, Jim would always have this stolen moment, these snatched hours, this thieved feeling. 

_Anywhere the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me_.

“Open your eyes,” Jim sang softly, “look up to the sky and see;” _I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy_. 

  
⎈

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I don't know what Bohemian Rhapsody is doing here, I wrote most of this during the first quarantine between 11pm and 3am and I don't know what was going on in quarantine me's mind but I sure won't mess with her stuff. So, I don't own Star trek, all its character, Disney's The Little Mermaid, and Bohemian Rhapsody, just to be sure.
> 
> Hope you liked the chapter, come chat on Tumblr if you feel like it, and have a nice day :)


	4. Of standing and changing

Frigid coldness, darkness, pain.

The ocean felt as cold as snow. It ate away at Spock’s skin. It burned him, it filled him, it overwhelmed him. 

Light. Sudden, bright, golden, scorching. The delirium of hypoxia, or the experience of life beyond death? 

Pain, cold, heat. Something warm and soothing around his wrists, around his waist. Pulling, pushing, seeping into his skin.

Cold, darkness, pain. The sound of the ocean all around him, like a school of dolphins.  
Light, cold, roughness against his back. Heat on his chest, over his heart, helping it contract and release, helping it pump, helping it breathe.

Pinpricks of ice on his skin, all over his body, all over his face.

A voice. Gold light, warmth, safety. Velvet melodies sang in Spock’s ears, just for him, calling him, soothing him, dragging him, enveloping his body, flowing into his mind, erasing the pain, the sorrow, the fear.

Light and music. Then, suddenly, nothing.

Spock was woken by the coldness of the wind, by the rain against his face. 

He regained awareness slowly.

First, came pain. His hands had been severely damaged by the ropes of the ratlines, his arms had been further burned by the lightning strike. They burned, acid and blistering, the pain intensified by the rain pounding on raw flesh. Spock blocked the wakening of his other sensory systems in favour of focusing his complete attention on the pain receptors. He muted the cognitive and emotional elaboration of pain of his amygdala and secondary sensorial cortex, leaving the locative nociceptive signals active so his body could remember the location and extent of damage without the distraction of pain.

Second, came the thirst. Vulcans were a species of the desert, used to low availability of water. The Vulcan physiology was built around conservation of fluids, an evolution that had allowed Vulcans to survive up to one week without water. Spock’s thirst was intense. He had gone through the rites of passage of his youth; he remembered the experience of prolonged water deprivation, and his current thirst was comparable to five point seven-two-eight days without it. It was possible that he had slept for five days, though his cognitive sense of time perceived that only hours had passed from his fall into the ocean. Spock had, however, ingested a significant quantity of sea water. Its saline concentration must have dehydrated his body to dangerous levels. He attempted to qualm its intensity, but found he could only diminish it to thirty-five point nine-seven-one percent. If he did not drink, he would die. 

He opened his mouth, waited and swallowed. Repeated. The cold droplets of rainwater were soothing and fresh on his parched throat, slowly erasing the urgency of his thirst. 

Third, came the fatigue. His body was excessively tired and sore. His muscles were filled with lactic acid. Spock had spent almost nine days seated in his quarters, only to run and climb extensively on the day of the storm. He had also swam underwater until his senses had left him. He could not focus on the soreness of his muscular system without losing focus of the control he had over the pain in his arms and the drying thirst in his pharynx. He was too weak, too dehydrated. He would have to endure it.

He must stand and assess his situation. The hydration to his mouth generated by the rain would pass and Spock would feel the bite of thirst again. He must find a way to collect the water and preserve it.

He opened his eyes, then squinted against the wind and the rain. Above him, the sky was grey and dark, clouds of all shades of tempest swirling and raining on the ocean.

He sat up, careful not to shift any weight on his injured arms and hands. In front of him was a slim line of wet sand, then, crystalline water merging into the dark blue depths of the sea. From his feet to the water, where the waves advanced and retreated, the sand was dug and shifted in a line as wide as his body. He had been dragged there. He checked his surroundings, but found no footprints on the sand.

Whoever had done it, had erased the proof of their passage. 

Spock looked back to the sea, considering the possibilities, calculating and evaluating chances. Many crew members had fallen into the sea. Some of them might have regrouped, found him and cut the ropes, and-

A flick in the water, at 0217 hours. Spock perceived his heart jump in his chest.

No traces in the sand. No safe-boats in the water. 

He had imagined he had been touched, in his hypoxic delirium. He had imagined music. He had imagined, or maybe he had not imagined at all.

Who is there, he tried to say, though his throat was too dry and nothing but choking, broken sounds came out.

The skin of his chest, right over his heart, was tingling.

His eyes scanned the darkened water, the waves reflecting the angry grey of the storm, looking for any trace of proof, any signs, any point of entry for him to- no. He did not wish to enter the water. It would be illogical. It was an irrationality he must fight against.

The chances of Spock’s salvation had been infinitesimal. There had not been another ship in the Enterprise’s proximity at the time of Spock’s fall, and he had suffocated in two point seven-five-four minutes. 

Blue eyes, blazing in the darkness. Golden light, the sound of swimming, the melody of a song, the heat of a caress and- No. No, no, no, no, no, stop. Spock pressed his hands against his eyes, against his ears, pushing as hard as he could to drive the memories away, to regain control, fighting, pushing, clawing, seeping blood.

Not again.

The irrational, familiar, infuriating call of the sea. 

Not again, not again, not again, please. 

Feeling his muscles ready to contract and bring him to the water, the grasp over his composure reduced significantly. 

Why? Why me? Why again?

  
He had believed he had been imagining everything. He had believed he had left the merman behind.

Yet, he was alive and he was alone, when probability of death had been of a hundred percent. He was alive and his skin was tingling. He was alive and he felt the sea pulling him to its depths. He was alive and he was compromised again.

He checked his surroundings, raising his eyes from the sand and studying the trees and rocks behind him. He recognised the island. It was T’Marah, one of the seven of the small archipelago they had stopped at before moving on to the sea. The place where, had they survived, the Enterprise would come back to.

He looked back at the sea, breathing hard. The blue-eyed man was the only siren of whom Spock had proof of existence. There was a ninety-eight point five-nine-eight chance that he was not the only member of his species. The man, or another siren, had saved his life. Had sung for him. Had touched him. Had enchanted his mind again.

Someone had followed the ship. Had the storm been natural, or had it been generated to kill them?

Why was Spock still alive? It did not make sense with the alleged accusation that the merpeople were the cause of the disappearances of Humans and Vulcans. It did not make sense with what Spock had experienced.

The consequences of the spells of the blue-eyed merman were still present in Spock’s mind. His shields were a sieve bending under pressure. His mind required an additional average of twenty-three point seven-one-nine minutes to reach the depths of healing meditation. His emotions clouded his judgement. He had hesitated before climbing up the shrouds during the storm.

Flashes, fragments, instants escaped his blocks, invaded his consciousness, his privacy, his safety, yet again.

The memory of the first event was segregated in a section of his mind, and the sole idea of reliving it brought him physical shivers of dread. He had never encountered anything that could affect his stability with such intensity, anything that could destroy his defences before his conscience gained awareness of the attack. Had he wanted to, the siren would have easily dragged him into the sea, and Spock would have followed without protest. Just a word, and Spock would have jumped overboard.

Just a word, and Spock would not be able to stop himself from diving into the sea.

He surveyed it again, waiting, anticipation coiling, dread building, waiting for another attack to strike.

He had been touched again. Nonetheless, he was still alive, and he did not understand why. Was this their aim? To psychologically torture their victims before killing them?

Grey waves, white foam. Blue eyes, golden hair, melodious voice- No. Cease this. Please.

One name standing out from a list. Ensign Nyota Uhura. Dragged down to the depths of the ocean, her smile and her eyes never to be illuminated by the sun again. Had she been played with too, like Spock? Was this a game, a test, to save his life and disappear, to follow a ship and steal its crew?

Why had the blue-eyed man not dragged Spock down the first time? Why had he disappeared before claiming his prey? Had it been because of the Captain’s, the crew’s presence? 

Why was Spock alive when the opportunity to make him disappear had presented itself? Why had the man, or any other siren, saved him, when they could have let him die? If they were hiding, miraculously saving a drowning man attracted far more attention than leaving him to his destiny.

The number of disappearances and the merman’s sighing left no doubts that a sentient marine species was actively working against Humans and Vulcans. Possibly against Cardassians, Klingons, and Romulans too.

Was this a hunting ritual of the merpeople? Did they enjoy isolating their prey and playing with it before killing them?

The waves kept coming and drawing back, blue and grey, hiding another universe beneath their veil.

Flashes, fragments, memories. His hands were bleeding as they pressed against his eyes. He needed something else to focus on. He needed to survive and warn others. The good of the many before the good of the few.

Spock stood and started looking for leaves to weave.

If the price for the Federation’s salvation was his sanity, few would mourn him. 

He would survive and warn others.

The sea would attack again and he could not be found unprepared another time.

  
⎈

  
“He’s fine, Captain. The ship was coming in his direction. Scotty and Bones will make sure they get here.” Sulu had been the first to arrive, then Chekov.

“Thank you,” Jim murmured. His hiding spell was not as good as Chekov’s, but the dark grey tinge of the storm was covering whatever Jim couldn’t. Also, the man kept squinting and shielding his eyes with his hands, as if the water hurt his eyes. If he hadn’t seen him when Jim had accidentally flicked his tail too close to the surface to swim away, he wouldn’t see them now.

He also didn’t really seem completely himself. He kept whispering and covering his eyes, breathing hard, his arms and legs shaking.

“Their legs are so strange,” Sulu commented. “How do they even stand with such slim things? Birds can barely stand, but at least they have bigger feet.”

“I’ll let you know how it works,” Jim said.

“Are you sure it’s the best plan? I mean, that guy seems pretty chill, and you just saved his life. I think he’ll hear you out if you talk to him now, without dark magic and legs.” The man was looking out to the ocean like the water could bite him. Not really as chill as Jim wished for a first introduction to an undiscovered new predatory species that lived under the sea.

“They were sent here as an alternative to bombing us, I’m not sure starting with his people is best. I’ll choose another shore, try and convince whoever is there into a deal, and then work to include him and his people in an alliance.”

“Like start with the blue guys?”

“Or the green guys. Bones said that their women have powers similar to ours, maybe they’ll understand better.” The man had green blood, even though his skin was almost as pink as Jim’s. It kept falling from the cuts and burns in his hands as he used them to rub his face and ears.

“Yeah, the green guys are a happy bunch. They’re always partying on their boats.” Sulu suddenly swam forward. “Look, he’s collecting stuff. He’s smart, see? He’ll be fine.”

He was collecting leaves and checking the sea behind his back with the wide eyes of a fish caught in a net. Probably not so fine.

“I guess,” he said, unsure. He knew he should lead Sulu back beyond the coral reef and wait for the others somewhere deeper, where no hiding spell was necessary, but he found himself loath to part from the man before seeing him safely to the ship. Especially since he was clearly half out of it and hurt.

He looked so fragile alone, without all of the terrestrials inventions to protect him, so much water surrounding him, looking over his shoulders to the sea as if he was seconds from being attacked.

“Do you wanna stay, Sir?”

“No,” Jim said, “no, let’s go. Thank you for coming so fast.” 

Jim shot one last look at the island, at the things the man was laying out, at his hands, moving and working. Inventing, creating, building. He would be fine, just a little shaken. It would pass when he realised nothing would grab him and pull him under. Jim was just being paranoid. 

“Come on,” he said, putting a hand on Hikaru’s shoulder and swimming to the end of the reef. There was a warmth in his blood, a warmth ceded by the man’s skin, and it oozed out of him at every swirl of his tail, every yard of distance, leaving room for the ice to regrow. Jim shivered, but swam on, the rain hitting the sea a meter above them, making the ocean taste just a little like the sky. He deserved the cold, he reminded himself, for all the people that were suffering because of his pride.

“Leonard tried to revive more people, you know.” The expanse of the ocean was in front of them, deep blue and grey, its surface wrinkled by the wind. The reef stopped suddenly, and the jump inside the deep blue always felt like entering a new world: the water became colder, the fish less colourful, and the predators bigger. The barrier between the two parts was a dangerous place to swim in. 

Jim looked into the ocean’s depth, thinking of home, of the palace, of his mom and her liquors. Bones had been with him for years. He’d been the first home Jim had ever had, and he was the best man Jim knew. Of course he’d tried. “I know,” he said. 

“They were more dead than him, I guess. Not that I know anything of medicine.”

“Let’s hope nobody else fell,” Jim said. He didn’t need more souls on his conscience.

“When I was little I was always scared of reef barriers,” Sulu revealed, looking down. “So many kids are afraid of going back into the ocean because it’s dark, but my mom said that I liked that part, and instead I never wanted to go up to the beach because of the barracudas.”

“And now you turn into one,” Jim said, smiling briefly at his friend.

“Yep, but I still prefer birds. They’re more stupid, but flying is rad.”

Yeah, Jim would probably take turning himself into a bird over a barracuda or any other fish. Maybe he’d even take it over being turned into a terrestrial. As far as he knew, terrestrials couldn’t fly, and flying was the swimming of the air, without any of the fear.

He looked up, studying the surface, looking at the darkness of the storm, the ripples of the rain, the movement of the waves. How did a bird feel, being able to go from the sea to the air, and from the air to the land, always welcome? Did they know how special they were, how free?

“What was that?” Sulu asked suddenly.

“What?” Jim asked, looking down.

“Something moved over there.” He was pointing at a place below them, but whatever he was seeing, it was lost in the blue blackness of the water. Until they descended, their eyes wouldn’t adjust to the darkness.

“I don’t see anything.”

“It’s moving fast,” Sulu said, his eyes sharp as he looked around.

“It’s probably a shark. Many hunt here.”

“No, I don’t think it’s a shark, it was too fast and too big and- Look out!”

“Wh-“ Jim was swept off from the edge of the reef with a violent pull at his waist, and thrown in the middle of the abyss. He rolled and flailed, his fin swirling as he tried to stop himself from spinning, and shouted in surprise. When he stopped, he found Sulu looking down at him severals yards above him. “What the hells was that?!” He looked around, but nothing could be seen in the expanse of the water. Whatever it was, it was hidden by a spell, or very very fast. 

“I don’t know, it was too fast to see!” Sulu replied.

“Swim back!” Jim ordered, starting to swim towards the barrier as fast as he could. “Swim back and get out of range, I’m coming.”

“I won’t leave you without cover, Sir.”

“I said, swim back!” The thing had grabbed Jim’s waist and thrown him away several yards, and Jim wasn’t exactly a light weight. They had no weapons and there wasn’t time for armament spells; whatever it was, it could kill them, and they’d be of no help to the others if they were both too dead to warn them. 

Sulu stubbornly didn’t obey and Jim gritted his teeth, accelerating. He was halfway through. “Sulu, this is an order, swim back! We need to be sma-“ Jim was hit again. This time, something grabbed his tail, vicious and tight, and flung him down again. Jim spun and spun, flailing, trying to get his balance back, and found himself further down than the place he’d started. “Fuck!”

“I don’t see anything, Sir!”

“Swim back before you get grabbed too!”

Jim didn’t wait to check if Sulu decided to obey him; he had to check his surroundings. The water was darker, and colder, and void of anything but small bubbles. He looked on his left, his right, behind him and below him, above him, and nothing met his eyes but water. This wasn’t an it, an animal couldn’t be this good at hiding. This was a who.

“All right!” Jim called out, raising his hands and opening his fins, “you got me! I’m not running, what do you want?”

Nothing on his left, nothing on his right, nothing behind him, below him, above him. A flicker of black on his right and Jim spun, narrowing down on it, but nothing was there but water.

“Come on, is this a fair fight? I can’t even see you.” Nothing around him, nothing at all. “Come on! I’m gonna start singing, dude. I swear I will. I know what it does to you and I don’t want to do it, but if you keep pushing me, I’ll do it.”

  
Nothing. Nothing for yards and yards and yards. Jim didn’t even feel watched, for the gods’ sake. Whoever this was, they were good at playing the hunting game. 

“You leave me no choice!” Jim warned. He really didn’t want to sing and enchant, even if he was being played with like a cob. It still felt wrong. 

He had no choice, though. He’d sing, he’d convince them to show themselves, and he’d convince them to go away. Just that. Easy. Nothing bad had to happen beside that. What was one song to stop a predator after all the people he had tortured?

He looked around again, clamping down on the wave of nerves that were smothering his chest.

He really didn’t want to do it again.

He started vocalising, focusing his tone on enchanting and acquiescing, pulling and calming, following one of his best melodies for sentients. He sang, checking his surroundings to see if anything had changed, and sang more, looking around, squinting in the water. He didn’t feel anything catch, anything get drawn, but whoever was playing with him must have some shielding, Jim only had to tear it away. 

Or maybe they had run when Jim had threatened to sing, and he could return to Sulu, to the reef, without having to add another victim to his conscience. Yeah, they had probably run. They must be one of those depth sirens, the ones that lived at the bottom of trenches and never got higher than several miles underwater. They must have realised they were outmatched and run. Jim could probably stop singing and-

All at once, Jim couldn’t breathe. Something, something huge, a tentacle, a moray eel, something, had latched on his face and neck and chest and was pulling him down, and Jim’s hands were grasping and tearing and pulling but couldn’t free him, couldn’t save him; he was being pulled down and more and more tentacles attached to his arms, his torso, his tail, clenching and grinding the delicate skin of his fins, and he couldn’t move, he was struggling and wiggling and arching and the tentacles held, pulling him down, down, down, down, into the darkness, into the cold.

Just when the lack of oxygen was sharp to the point of passing out, he was released. 

Jim swam backwards on instinct, and hit rocks, and jumped forward and hit more rocks, his vision struggling to adjust the sheer darkness of the seabed all at once, his heart pounding in his chest, spreading the panic in his arteries and veins, breathing hard as his hands tingled, ready for another confrontation, his ears ringing from the sudden change of pressure he hadn’t yet adjusted to.

Light hit him, and hurt his eyes. 

He turned away, covering them with his hands, and tried looking around.

He was in a cave. If he squinted between his fingers, he could see the walls on the other side, made of dark, rigged rock. In the middle of the room, red fire was burning, heating up the space.

“Hello.”

Jim’s head snapped to his right. A man was there. A man was there, and Jim hadn’t even noticed him, hadn’t even felt his presence before he had spoken. All of Jim’s instincts seemed to have shut off, leaving him blind.

“Who are you?” Jim questioned, lowering his hands.

The man swam forward, and was illuminated red. He was bigger than Jim, bald, his face and head covered in black marks that travelled down to his neck and chest, to his abdomen, where skin gave way to black, thick, long tentacles. His ears were just as pointy as the ones of the man on the surface.

There was just one person he could be, however impossible.

“I think you know who I am,” Nero said, “after all, you were looking for me, James.”

A terrestrial. Drowned, but alive. The reason Jim’s dad was dead. The reason Jim’s mom was broken. The reason for all of the attacks, the killings, the kidnappings. The genesis of the fear, of the pain, of the hate.

“How do you know my name?”

The man snorted. “Who doesn’t? The miracle child, the genius prince. You’re quite famous. Thanks to your dad, of course.” Jim’s fist clenched before he could stop himself. “Don’t like that, huh? Your dad has a big shadow, kid.”

Jim gritted his teeth. “I’m not a kid.” 

“Yes, you are.” Nero circled the fire, swimming away from Jim. “The stupid plan you came up with is proof. Follow the ship that was sent here to find you, then turn yourself into a terrestrial and magically unite all of their people? And not only that, you managed to get spotted. They remember your face.”

The cause of so much pain, so much death, was there in the flesh in front of him, scorning him, looking down at him, playing with him. Alive, breathing, real. Jim didn’t know what he had expected. His territory was a place of cold dark waters, a place where nobody went. A place people didn’t come back from. He didn’t know what he had expected, but not… this. He had imagined him bigger, stronger, darker. He had seen him in his nightmares as a child, huge and black and sleek, his teeth as sharp as a shark’s, his eyes gleaming and radiating evil. 

The man in front of him had terrestrial eyes, pink skin, nervous tentacles. He seemed no different to any other water person, trivial. Yet Jim hadn’t perceived his presence. The man knew of his plans, he had followed him long enough to catch them all and Jim couldn’t recall a single time he had felt observed. “How long have you been following me?” 

He looked inconsequential, but he must be more. Nero had studied him before taking him, he had called out Jim’s weakness, his dad, he knew how to provoke him. If Jim wanted to get out alive, he had to be smarter. He had to work around the knowledge that this man, this small angry man, had caused a massacre and could do it again. That this small angry man had followed him for days and for some reason had decided to act right now, precisely in that moment, just after Jim had saved a life of a man who had his same ears. Were they related? Were they connected? If he knew about the man on the surface, and he must know, was he in danger too?

“A few years,” Nero said, “your fool of a mother thought her spells could keep me away. They can’t. I’ve just been waiting for the right occasion.”

“Why didn’t you kill me sooner?” Nero stopped when his fire was between them, and stared Jim in the eyes, his black orbs gleaming red, reflecting the fire, almost looking genuinely marine. They weren’t, though. They were terrestrial. His vision had to be bad, worse than Jim’s, and if Jim found the counter spell to whatever Nero had casted on himself to see in the darkness, he could run.

“Kill you? Why would I? You’re my secret project. Or, do you really think that sharks just casually didn’t swim by all of the wrecks you played at, when you were younger?”

When you were younger. How young had Jim been, the first time he’d run away to a shipwreck? Nine, ten years old? How had Nero concealed himself so well, and why would he show his face now, in a moment where Jim was so ostracised and hated that he couldn’t step foot in the palace without being scorned at? 

Why not show himself at Jim’s coronation? Why not take him when he’d been young, when George’s face hadn’t yet blossomed on his, when his mother wasn’t as lost, when he’d been desperate for attention and manipulating him would have been embarrassingly easy?

“What do you want with us?”

“Why ‘us’, kid? I want nothing from your mother or her little fish. We’re even. I took away her husband, they took away my ship. I have no interest in them, as long as they stay away. You, on the other hand, could be interesting.”

_You’re my secret project_. Nero wanted him to ask about it. Jim wouldn’t. If he got frustrated, maybe he’d reveal more than he intended, more than he wanted Jim to know. “And you don’t want any revenge?”

“Oh, I had my revenge. Winona will suffer until her death for what was taken from her, as will I.”

“You ship was taken from you. And your legs.” How, Jim wanted to ask. How did he manage to turn himself into one of them, change his legs for tentacles, change his lungs so they would stop breathing air? “That’s not like losing someone.”

“I lost more than someone!” Nero screamed, and Jim forced himself not to flinch. Very quick-tempered and prone to anger. He could use it. He knew how to use it. 

He could use it to bait him and get him to talk; he could use it to get him to tell him how he had dragged him down, how he had concealed himself, what the real game was.

“You and I are similar, child.” Nero swam closer to the fire, and twirled his hands, magic cascading down from his skin easily, dark and thick, and the flames turned white and raised, painting pictures. 

Jim, young and naive, swimming inside the wreck of a human ship.

Jim, naive and strong, swimming up and singing, swimming down when he risked being seen, his voice toned to perfection.

Jim, strong and stupid, playing with Sulu at who could attract more fish by singing to enchant them.

Jim, stupid and older, falling from the black-haired man’s ship and looking up to him, frozen, his eyes blaring in the darkness of the night.

“What is this?” Jim asked, tearing his gaze away.

“You realised what your magic does,” Nero said. “As did I. You want to tell your mother and stop her from ordering more people taken and tortured.”

“Why didn’t you come forward before, if you knew we were torturing your people?”

“Not all terrestrials are my people,” Nero spat, “and your mother blames them for the death of her dad, and ignores me. Why would I get her attention again, after what her husband did?” Nero swiped the white flames away, and the fire receded to its red ambers, illuminating the centre of the cave. “I lost more than my ship, that day. I lost my life. I need to get back to the surface and settle a debt. But, I can’t get my legs back myself. Your mother cursed me with the trident.”

“And you want me to steal it for you?” Jim asked. 

“Oh no,” Nero said, “Winona is lost in her fantasies and obsessions. She won’t part with the trident until she dies.

“No, I want to offer you a deal. You want to get on land and start a treaty, I want my curse to be broken.”

“What can you do for me that you can’t do for yourself?” 

“Oh, I can turn you into a human,” Nero said, “it will be easy enough, and only require a small price.”

“And what is it you get from me?” Jim asked, looking for the catch.

“Your voice.”

Jim tried to hide his frown. His voice? He could use his vocal magic better than the others, yes, but his voice wasn’t special. What would he gain by it? Jim’s mother wouldn’t trade it for the breaking of the curse. She wouldn’t trade Jim’s life for the breaking of the curse, she was too afraid of Nero, and Jim had brought her to despising him long before. She didn’t care for him as she cared for Sam.

“You’re confused, little fish. Let me explain. I give you legs in exchange for your voice. I will also leave you with the most pacific terrestrial race, the ones that will surely shelter you, and leave your translation spells active in the air. You will have three weeks to convince them to join an alliance or whatever it is you want. When you’re done, you dive in the sea, do my spell, and have your tail back.”

“And my voice?”

“Your voice stays mine. Oh, don’t look at me like that, you’ll manage fine. Bat your blue eyes in some prince’s face and they’ll give you what you want. After all, don’t you hate it, now that you know what it can do?”

Jim studied the man in front of him. Yes, Jim hated his voice. He wished he had never had it. He hated himself for what he’d done. But how could he reach an alliance with the terrestrials if he couldn’t talk? He couldn’t even write in their alphabet. 

Nero wanted his voice. He wanted it badly. What was special about it? Winona wouldn’t break his curse for it. She wouldn’t accept him nor help him. This deal seemed too good for Jim and it had too many holes. 

Jim couldn’t leave his voice in the hands of the man who had killed his father and half of his people. It was powerful enough to kill more. He had been angry when Jim had suggested that he cared for all terrestrials. If he despised them like he had despised Jim’s dad, he would use Jim’s voice to take them.

“What will you do with it?” Jim asked, edging around the point he wanted to make, “With my voice?”

“Trade it for my legs.”

“That won’t work.”

“Leave it to me. It’s my plan. You get your part, I get mine.”

“I can’t leave my voice to anyone,” Jim said, looking down, forcing his mouth into a line, his forehead into a frown. Looking as miserable and naive as he could. “I know what it can do. I’m sorry. I can give it to you if you need it for the spell, but we’ll sign an agreement that you won’t use it to enchant terrestrials, and when I turn back into myself, I need it back. It’s too dangerous to trust anyone with it. I couldn’t live with it.”

“Noble,” Nero said, “and stupid. No payment, no spell.”

“Choose something else,” Jim said, “something less dangerous, and I’ll do it.”

Nero’s eyes gleamed. There it was, some of the light behind the curtain, a flash of what Nero had wanted from him conversation all along. “I want the royal family.”

Jim stopped himself from frowning. “You want… what?”

“King Sarek, Queen Amanda, and their children, the royals of the people I’ll leave you with.”

“Terrestrials? You want me to kidnap them?”

“Vulcans,” Nero said, his voice laced with venom. “Corrupted and evil. They caused the death of my family. This war started because of them. Taking them away will be a favour to their people.”

“I can’t be responsible for the death of more people,” Jim said, “even if they did all that.” Even if it’s true.

“Oh, they did,” Nero murmured, staring into the flames. “They did it and hid it. You’ll be able to see for yourself how peculiar they are. Everybody hates them.”

“I won’t kidnap people to get them killed, not without fair trial.”

“I won’t harm them,” Nero said, “you can put it in your agreement. I just want to talk to them; show them what they caused.”

“Just talking and touring?” Jim asked, “Then you get them back home and I get my voice and tail back? Will you pull them down as gently as you pulled me?”

“You’re fine, they’ll be fine. I’ll make them a bubble.” Nero swam again, circling the fire and reaching Jim, studying him. “So, little fish, do we have a deal?”

Jim raised his chin and met his gaze unflinchingly. “I’ll write.”

  
⎈

  
Spock had successfully applied his knowledge of artisanal fishing bowls to weave a functional water container, of approximately three point eight-two-one litres in volume, with minimum leakage. It had not been easy; his hands were open and raw. Tearing his shirt to bandage them had increased their functionality of only seven point three-one-two percent.

He left it under the rain and proceeded to build an oblique draining structure around it, so all of the rainwater falling in the meter-wide surface around the bowl would be collected. Fortunately, T’Marah held sufficient coconut trees for the additional materials he needed. Had it not, Spock would have had to swim to the nearest island, T’Meere. He would have had to touch the water again.

His chest had not stopped tingling, despite Spock’s repetitive attempts to silence the sensory input from the area. It felt irrationally warm, warmer than the rest of his body surface, as if the imprint of the foreign touch had left a mark. It was detrimentally distracting.

Spock checked the horizon at five minutes intervals on a complete 360 degrees radius. He had not spotted any sign of the Enterprise yet. If night fell twice and still nothing appeared, Spock would start a more permanent strategy of survival. The resources available would keep him alive for four months and twenty days approximately, though he would have to temporarily disregard his vegetarian diet and fish for any marine animal he might catch with a make-shift spear. 

Since the experience of eating meat would cause significant strain to his digestive system, Spock found himself more prone to dwell on scenarios that involved the reappearance of the Enterprise.

Of course, no such thing would happen if the wounds on his hands and arms became infected. Spock had not found any plants he could use as a medicine; if the infection took place, he would die.

He completed the draining structure in thirty-seven minutes. The feeling of being watched had disappeared. The chances that his safety had thus increased were, however, low: it was a reminder that the merman’s magic could be strong enough to win over Spock’s sharpest instincts.

Spock had, in the past, often made use of manual labour to induce deep and unconscious streams of reasoning, to reach solutions that seemed impossible to obtain. Normally, the more he focused his attention on repetitive, practical tasks, the more his mind subconsciously worked to solve the issues. Usually, the solution appeared in his mind unprompted, flawlessly logical. He had superficially and presumptuously assumed that these results implied that even his subconscious, the deepest and wildest part of a Vulcan’s mind, worked on logic.

It did not. The proof, the terrifying proof, lay in Spock’s inability to purge his mind of dangerous thoughts. The more he worked, the more the memories assaulted him, intrinsically connected to the knowledge that he was being hunted by a species that could strip him of his control, could tear down his shields, could leave their imprint on his skin. His constraint was as tenuous as a cobweb in the wind. He could not control his body, he could not control his mind. If he were to ever return to Vulcan like this, he would be hidden and forced into a coma, he would be forced to undergo Kolinahr, he would be accused of being too weak, too fragile, too hybrid. He would lose all he had.

The more his mind followed distracted patterns and he attempted to block them, the more unwanted memories reached the forefront of his thoughts, as if his own mind was taunting him. The meditative box where Spock had locked the experience of the merman’s first enchantment was leaking. 

Stop, he thought, he ordered, to whom, he did not know. Stop, stop, stop, stop, st-

Blue eyes, more magnetic than the planet’s core, gleaming in the darkness, luring him in, luring him down. 

He pressed his fingers against a sharp branch, pushing until the bandages were soaked in a new dark layer of green blood, pushing until the pain slipped through his shields, stabbing his mind, sharp as a knife, cutting the memory away. I am in control of my emotions.

Stop.

A word, a voice, clasping his heart, clenching it, calling him. A voice, a song, words with a clear meaning, speaking of solitude and sadness. Spock could not prove it, though he was certain that the merman on the ship and the merman who had sung to him were the same person. 

His eyes darted to the sea, escaping his control. The waves looked back, tempestuous and silent. Was Spock a prey? Or was he the recipient of a secret testimony, the listener of a closeted confession?

I am in control of my emotions. 

Just stop, cease this, give me rest. _Stop_.

His touch had been as warm as the sun over ShikaHr in the hot days of summer, as warm as a bath in the thermal waters of the Tar’Hana’s underground pools. Warm enough to revive him, electrical like the sand storms in the Forge desert.

Spock clenched his hands until pain whitened his vision.

He must regain his control and find a way to survive. He must survive and warn others. He must survive and speak with Nyota’s family, he must survive and tell his mother that he loved her, he must survive and find out if his crew was lost. He must overcome his fears and face reality, face the likely possibility that the Enterprise was not coming and evaluate his chances of survival based on the fact that no other ship had been deployed with them, in fear of losing more people. 

He must consider and accept the possibility that his life was already lost, and work on some way to warn the fleet despite this. He must think beyond the pain, the confusion, the terror. He must be completely Vulcan and assess his situation accordingly.

He was stranded on an island, alone. 

He had limited resources to survive and he would soon need to forgo his dietary habits and eat animals, compromising his own moral values and corrupting his physiology, further damaging his psyche.

He was wounded and surrounded by water, the shrouded reign of the creature who was hunting him, and had no means to defend himself.

He had lost the grasp on his mental control; his shields were tumbling down. 

His body would most likely not ever be found.

This archipelago was one often visited by ships which sailed the path from Vulcan to Terra. Spock might be dragged into the sea at any moment, he might die of starvation, of infection, of delirium, of food poisoning. His best chance was to leave a message here, a message which no marine being nor atmospheric condition could alter. 

He looked at the trees of T’Marah, and at its sand. There were no stones he could see, nor shells resilient enough for his needs.

He looked at the sea.

I am in control of my emotions.

Seventeen point two meters separated him from the water. He crossed the distance in twenty one measured steps. The waves were gentler here, on the island, and rippled by the droplets of rain meeting the surface. The water was clear.

Spock studied the four meters of seabed he could discern, searching. Three shells appeared to have the necessary physical characteristics he would require for his duty, and one dark linear figure had the visual semblance of a rook. The briefest path to collect them all was an irregular quadrangle that would take him three meters into the water, three meters from the safety of dry sand.

If everything went without accidents, he would complete this path in thirty seconds.

Spock swallowed against his dry throat. The presence of his filling water bowl came to the forefront of his thoughts. He could walk back, drink, then try. It would not change anything, just alleviate his thirst. He could- No. That was illogical. Retrieving the objects would take less than a minute, Spock could drink after. He was not dehydrated enough to be impaired.

All would be well. He would walk the path he had calculated and he would exit the water with the tools. Touching the sea would not harm him. He had touched it many times before. All would be well. 

He was being illogical.

Touching the water would not break his remaining control. Touching the water would not have him hurl himself into the depths, swimming down and down and down until all of him was lost. Touching the water would not bring the spell back, would not bring the blue eyed man out. Touching the water would just be a physical motion inside a liquid that happened to contain necessary objects.

All would be well. He must do this. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few, he must do this, he must warn the people, his people, his mother, who loved to walk on the beach with her feet in the water, he must. He must.

Spock took a step forward and his left foot was submerged by crystalline water, cold and pungent, and sank in the wet sand. All was well. All was-

A sudden, blinding white light appeared in the water in front of him, illuminating the whole bay, ringing with high pitched magic with an intensity that hurt his ears. He jumped back, and retreated several steps on the sand, up until his makeshift water collector was in front of him, a slim barrier between himself and the sea.

The light was ascending and intensifying, the ringing getting louder and louder, and Spock had to press his hands against his ears to limit the damage, squinting, attempting to use the pain to ground himself. 

The light grew and grew, and moved closer to the sand, and Spock had the fleeting and harsh realisation that if it was after him, there would be no way to escape it, and he stepped back again, colliding with one of the palm trees, his hands pressing so hard they were bleeding, closing his eyes with pain, the image in front of him burned in his retina, and then- it stopped.

Suddenly, as if nothing had happened at all, silence fell. 

He opened his eyes. The sea was as before, rippled by waves and rain, the transparent water giving way to the greyness of the reflected storm. Spock started checking his systems, terrified by the perspective of having being damaged or marked in a way that was beyond his perception, when a hand appeared in the middle of the water.

Spock jumped back in surprise, his nerves raw and frail, and watched with wide eyes as a man crawled forward with difficulty, his head emerging and submerging and coughing as if he had forgotten how breathe. 

He was coming for Spock. He had to run. He must- the man had legs. He had legs, they were kicking and splashing like a child’s, as if he had forgotten how to use them, or had lost the strength to control them. He had round ears and blond hair and legs — he was human. Another crew member saved from the wreck? Had Spock appeared on the beach in the same way?

He ran to the water, checking the surface where the light had appeared, but no fins nor glowing eyes were visible in its grey swirls. 

He did not hesitate to walk inside the waves, running to the man’s side and pulling him up, surprised by his nakedness and, with hands that burned, pulled him out on the shore and left him on the dry sand. 

The man fell ungraciously on his stomach and face, breathing heavily, gasping raggedly, coughing up water and curling his hands in the sand. He was shaking in every part of his body, of pain or fear or tiredness, Spock did not know. 

His hands were too bandaged and damaged to pick up anything telepathically.

“All is well,” Spock said, alternating his gaze from the man to the sea, checking for anything that might reappear to pull them under again. “I am Lieutenant Commander Spock, USS Enterprise. Who are you?”

The man took seven point five seconds to get his breathing under control, and one of his hands flew to his throat, holding it as if afraid someone would take the air from him again. Slowly, he used his elbows to fall onto his back, and stared up at the sky, at Spock.

Spock recognised him the moment the man recognised him back.

He flinched back, putting two point five meters of distance between them, his heart beating wildly, completely beyond his control. 

“You,” he said, accusingly. His features were somehow softer, his eyes weren’t glowing, his legs were human. Yet Spock knew, he _knew_ he was the merman of the night of the party. He would recognise him anywhere, _anywhere_. He had dreamed his face, his eyes, his laughter and his voice. He had dreamed his grin as he pulled Spock under, destroyed his control and took his oxygen away. 

The man had widened his eyes and his legs had contracted in surprise, but he had otherwise not moved. His head was still lying on the sand, sideways, looking at Spock, confusion, disbelief, anger, and fear in his eyes.

“How?” Spock demanded. How was it possible? Could mermen turn into humans? If so, how many had already infiltrated the fleet, how many had infiltrated the Federation?

The man opened his mouth but choked on his words, and nothing came out but a wheeze and a caught, and an horrified face. With difficulty, he slowly sat up, pushing his torso vertically on trembling arms, and took his eyes off Spock to stare accusingly at the sea, anger written in every line of his body.

Spock looked as well, his fighting instincts active under the stress hormones travelling in his blood flow, and readied himself for the possible appearance of another marine being.

The man looked at the sea for twelve point seven seconds, and then looked at his legs. He flexed his feet, bent his knees, contracted his calves. Moved his fingers one by one with a face that appeared awed. There was a significant chance, judging by his behaviour, that he had just acquired this human trait, had just lost the fish half of his body. 

He raised his right hand, nearly falling when his left was left to hold the weight of his body, and carefully, hesitatingly, placed it on his thigh, smiling in amazement, then running it down to his shin. His eyebrows were raised, and his eyes bright, his lips curved and slightly open. 

Even if the man was truly experiencing the physicality of legs for the first time, Spock would not let his appearance distract him again. 

“How did you get here?” Spock asked, controlling his voice sternly, “How can you have legs?”  
The man… ignored him. Instead, he looked down between his legs, and frowned at his crotch. 

“Answer me. Do you understand my words?”

His hand was three centimetres from exploring that zone too, and Spock’s words came out nearly choked from the rush to stop the inappropriate scene, and the inappropriate, alien feelings that it was generating in his chest. 

“You are a monster, and under arrest for murder, torture and assault,” he said, raising his voice, satisfied with the man’s jump of surprise and the pained light in his widened eyes, “by the authority of the Federation of Continents. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

His face steeled over, then he frowned. His gaze on Spock turned more assessing, gauging, measuring. His right hand shifted from his thigh to his chest, with his index pointing at the middle of his sternum. _Me?_

“Yes, you. State your name for official records.”

The man, instead of appearing further frightened, raised a single, ironic eyebrow at him. Spock clenched his fists, and the pain wasn’t nearly enough to clench the fire of burning annoyance that lighted in his heart. I am in control of my emotions. I am-

He looked away from Spock and fixed his eyes on the sea, sighing with a bitter pout on his lips. He nodded slightly, then crossed his arms against his chest, fists against his opposite shoulders.

It might be his people’s symbol for surrender, or it might be the start of another one of his charms. Spock would not take any risks.

“Lie down on your stomach,” he ordered quickly, “hands behind your back.” Slowly, still shaking with the effort, the man did, watching Spock with a burning gaze he could not interpret. “State your name, I will not repeat myself again.”

Again, the man opened his mouth and nothing came out. He looked at Spock’s eyes and shrugged lightly. Spock had the sudden, distinct impression that he was being either ridiculed or mocked. He barely stopped himself from clenching his teeth, fighting to keep his face neutral.

“Arrogance will not help you.” Spock took three steps sideways, getting closer to his water container. The man’s blue eyes followed him without pause, making him feel like the prey even though he was not the one forced on the ground. “I will bind your wrists and ankles and you will allow the procedure. Any resistance will be used against you in court. I do not have the right to force you to speak nor interrogate you without a witness or a chance for you to have a legal defender, though I will expect answers if any more magical phenomena happen that might be dangerous to my person.”

The man cocked his head, studying him, frowning slightly. 

“Nod if you understand.” 

He nodded once. Spock nodded back. 

“Good. I will find materials to bind you. Do not move.”

Spock expected the man to move and attack him, even though he didn’t appear to have optimal control over his limbs. After Spock had stated his arrest, any lightness had left his eyes, and a steely determination had tinged his face. He had the gaze and the attitude of a man in command, a man that could take advantage of any situation, a man that knew his strengths and had decided that the best course of action was to comply, much like Captain Pike had in many situations, before overturning them in his favour.

Spock was very aware that his initial collaboration might be a farce to lull him into a false sense of security, and kept his eyes on the man while he collected leaves and strings. It slowed him down significantly, though it did not matter. The man was looking at him with an intensity that spoke of plans forming in his mind, and Spock could not be caught unprepared again.

He lay motionless and silent as Spock bound his wrists and ankles tightly. He did not complain nor flinch. Spock found it significantly difficult to keep his focus on his hands and not on the expanse of naked skin in front of his eyes, and not even the pain of manipulating the strings with his wounded fingers managed to ground him.

This man, bound and apparently submissive, still held sway over him. Still abated his walls.   
His skin tingled where it brushed against him, and the feeling seemed just as permanent as the one on his chest, over his heart. It was, actually, exactly the same.

“Did you bring me here?” Spock asked, standing up and observing his work. If the man had the strength of a human, the bonds would hold. If he had the strength of a Vulcan, he would be able to break free easily. This knowledge was not reassuring in the least, though nothing else could be done.

The man chose silence again, and instead raised an eyebrow, his eyes suspicious. 

“This is not an interrogation. I simply wish to know.”

Slowly, still eyeing him distrustingly, he nodded.

“Why did you spare my life?”

Spock received no answer but a piercing gaze.

The silence was affecting his nerves. He had restrained the man, and yet he still felt like the one who was being played. 

With the storm, Spock did not know what hour of the day it was.

He should check the horizon, then start gathering food. He raised his eyes to the north, no hope left in him, and initially believed himself to be hallucinating. He squinted against the rain, and covered his eyes, running to the edge of the beach in the shadow’s direction. There, in the middle of the horizon, a line had appeared, wide enough to be a ship, travelling to the islands.

Chance determined that it could be nothing but the Enterprise. 

Spock’s chest filled with cold, soothing relief, so powerful he did not attempt to quench it. He would not die on T’Marah.

He turned back to his prisoner, and found him looking at the horizon too, right at the Enterprise.

“That is my ship, if you remember,” Spock offered. The man’s lips curved into a half smile for zero point three seconds, and went back to his stony expression. “You will be imprisoned, though given water and food.” The man didn’t react to the idea at all. “They will ask your name. You should offer it.”

Spock received, yet again, nothing but an intense look.

It was indeed the Enterprise, coming to the islands to ride out the storm. Spock had estimated his chances of being right to ninety-eight point nine percent, though he was nonetheless further relieved when he recognised the ship at a closer distance.

The Enterprise lay anchor just off the barrier, and lifeboats immediately descended into the water, carrying the men to the beaches of the islands. The currents spread them and divided them, though nobody attempted to keep formation; they only rowed against the sea, aiming for any land at all, no matter the island.

Spock recognised Captain Pike immediately. With him were Number One and Commander Nhan, and seven more members of the senior crew. Their boat reached the beach fifty meters from Spock, and they all jumped in the water to pull it to shore. 

Captain Pike, his yellow uniform blazing in the storm, left them to secure it and ran over where Spock was, standing and waiting, half an eye on his prisoner and half on the Captain.

“Spock!!” Captain Pike said, relief and disbelief evident in his voice and his expression, running and coming to a halt with a hand on Spock’s shoulder. Spock let it be. “My God, I thought you had drowned! Nhan saw you fall! Are you all right? I had to ask everybody twice if they saw you, I thought I was having visions.”

“I am fine, Sir.” Fine had variable meanings, and Captain Pike did not need to know of his psyche. He did not need to know about his lacking control. Spock would go back to his rooms and meditate, and all would be well again. He simply had to act normally until he could. “The crew?”

“Twenty victims,” the Captain deadpanned, “we think. We’ll count again now. Spock, how the hell are you here? And, what, who…? Spock, why is there a naked man bound behind you?”

The Captain circled him before Spock could speak, ever impatient of having answers as soon as possible. Spock was too tired to feel insulted. “You may recognise him from-“

The man raised his face to stare at Captain Pike. “Oh God.” The Captain put a hand on his mouth and fell back, hitting the sand, staring with wide eyes at the man. “What-“ Pale and unsure, he stunned Spock by kneeling in front of him and gently pulling the merman up to his knees, looking him over with rapid, frantic eyes, his hands shaking as much as the man’s body. “George?”

Spock’s words of warning died on his lips as he saw the man’s eyes blaze with fire and anger, his head moving back, then slamming forward, head-butting the Captain and knocking him out cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two and a half months later than promised in the comments, but here chapter 4 is! And there is some Spirk plot! I mean, not really, but at least now they're together. Not _together_ together, but- well, you know what I mean.
> 
> And the plot starts getting coplicated!
> 
> Hope you liked it :)


End file.
